«Cantine Madonna delle Grazie estate represents the uninterrupted daily job in the vineyards that my family has been carrying out for four generations. I still remember my childhood days during the joyful and hard period of the grape harvest. The songs of the workers, the wagons full of grapes’ baskets hauled by mules, the rhombus of the oak barrels rolling down the roads from a wine cellar to another are today so vivid in my mind. Despite the hard job during the grape harvest, the joy and the satisfaction to work in the family wine cellar were great. I still remember my grandfather Giuseppe, grapegrover for a life, with his happy and severe face, always busy while continuously crossing the door of the wine cellar on whose side a branch, symbol of the sale of the wine, was suspended. I grew up thanks to these simple values and in this simple atmosphere. I confess that I have had my best satisfactions but also the most difficult moments in the vineyards. My family was able to preserve our vineyards, historical cores of the Aglianico, even when viticulture seemed to reach the end in the Vulture area. Today I am glad that my sons, born wine-growers and turned into winemakers, wish to carry on this job and these values».
the vineyards
Our eight hectars of vineyards are spread out on hills located between 400 and 550 m above sea level. They are all trained to vertical canopy positioning, guyot system pruning, with a medium density of 4.500 plants/hectars. The grape harvest is rigorously manual and it is delayed to attend the perfect grape ripening. The vineyard is managed by using certified techniques at a low environmental impact thanks to the technical assistance of my sons. I can proudly assert that our vineyards as well as our wine cellars represented the past but they are also the present and the future of my family.
The wine cellars
Our new wine cellars, located near the monastic complex of the Madonna delle Grazie (XVI century) are provided with modern equipments and vertical tanks. They allow us to exploit the quality of our selected grapes with a well definite winemaking technique. It is based on direct experiences of scientific research and on a deep knowledge of the Aglianico del Vulture vine.
