Bed & Breakfast and Restaurant in Cortona, Toscana

Wine

I have always believed that in order to be able to better judge somebody else's work it is necessary to experience that job first hand. Therefore, after spending 17 years introducing natural wines in my restaurant in Cortona, I decided that the moment had come for the production of a wine all of my own. Hence I planted my first acre (0.23 hectares) of vineyard in the small valley of Chio, at an altitude of 300 meters on a clay-sandstone mixed soil. Born and bred in Tuscany, I picked Sangiovese, thinking of giving this grape a little dignity, since in my area it is often overlooked in favor of the international grape varieties. The training system is the traditional Mediterranean. Practically the vines are planted at the apexes of an equilateral triangle which then forms an hexagon so that the land is utilized optimally and in order to force the roots to grow vertically and deep into the soil. The plants thus resist better to droughts and they naturally produce a lesser amount of grapes. The vines are heavily pruned and all the operations are carried out manually, also because of the short distance between the plants. The soil has never been fertilized nor has been touched by any systemic chemical substance.

Since 2007 I produce a wine called DODO

After fermentation in wooden vats with indigenous yeasts, the wine goes into barrels for a year before being bottled with a minimum dose of sulfites  (19 mg / l total). Dodo is produced in a few hundred bottles of 1 liter and is the result of the work of the purest nature and my passion, for this is dedicated to my son and Fabrizio de Andrè.

In 2009 I planted another vineyard of 0.5 hectares of Sangiovese always, on top of a hill entirely composed of marl at an altitude of 360 m above sea level In this case the plant sapling is leaning back with a density of 9000 plants.

La Sella dell'Acuto wine is made exclusively from this vineyard is vinified in the same way of the Dodo. The name is a tribute to their leader John Hawkwood, who lived in the nearby castle.

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