Philosophy
Neglect: the determination to prevent neglect has inspired most of the company’s decisions.
Preventing neglect, rescuing abandoned lands, vineyards, and olive groves, and thus making the most of them, respecting the environment and restoring the beauty of these places for the benefit of all.
It is a project born out of a desire to create products that, in terms of both form and substance, are the true expression of a countryside tended with love, as though it were a garden. We would be immensely proud to be able to say “we have grapes growing in our gardens”.
Will we manage? We are just at the beginning, and it’s a huge, daunting task, but we’ll try.
Segale and Maolina are a precious and ancient heritage that belonged to the community of Lucca, for whom they have always been synonymous with fine wines.
Our work to restore the land has also involved preserving some manual processes, even though they may be somewhat anachronistic, such as tying the vines with willow reeds.
The idea of restoration, saving the land from neglect, maintaining age-old practices and respecting tradition all reflect a single desire: to avoid standardisation.
This has naturally led to some increased costs, but it has also brought riches that we consider paramount. Riches based on three concepts: environmental protection, rehabilitation of the landscape, and authentic enhancement of the terroir – the hills of Lucca, a secluded corner of Tuscany. Unique and special.
Our philosophy maintains that what is “good” – in terms of the quality of what the land produces – is a natural consequence of the “beauty” of a well-tended, harmonious landscape, treated with respect. To achieve this beauty and to ensure the best, we naturally had no choice but to go organic.
OUR WORK
As luck would have it, our estates are in two of the historic crus of Lucca: Maolina and Segale. The exposure is to the south-southwest, at between 100 and 400 metres above sea level. The zones are well ventilated and sunny, with soils of different compositions – more mineral in Segale, more clayey in Maolina, ideal for viticulture and olive growing..
It’s no coincidence that they talk of “heroic farming” when you go out to work these lands: machines simply cannot replace all the manual tasks involved. This is due to the nature of the terrain, which can be very rough, with steep slopes and extremely narrow terraces. This manual labour puts you in a very close, physical relationship with nature. Something that goes beyond mere effort – or possibly thanks to it – for it gives real, powerful sensations, re-establishing an authentically empathic bond with nature. A feeling of interdependence, respect, awe, and gratitude.
To improve the quality of the fruit, we do our grape-thinning in the vineyard and, to ensure the typicity and identity of the wine, we rely on spontaneous fermentation (at controlled temperatures), as they used to do before there were inoculated yeasts. What we are seeking is a wine with a personality of its own, not standardised, and higher quality, even though we believe that what gives a wine its true personality is the entire history behind it, and only in part the techniques adopted.
This is also true for the extra virgin olive oil, from our organically treated trees, with the olives harvested and processed on the same day in the company’s mini oil mill, at low temperature and with short crushing times. Our mini oil mill transforms the olives into oil in two stages, rather than in the three used in conventional mills. This ensures a more delicate extraction and a less-stressed product, the quality of which is immediately evident in both smell and taste, with an oil that maintains the characteristics of the olives themselves.