La Doccia di Vinci

Grandfather Cesare had decided to retire from his vineyards and olive trees. For someone like him, it was like to stop breathing, but the years on his shoulders were starting to be several and despite having more strength and energy than many thirty-year-old’s, it was time to slow down.

Our mother, Paola, had been helping grandfather Cesare in the fields for years, but she didn’t feel like thinking of almost 30 hectares of land all alone.

At that time, we did something else: my sister Sara was an accountant and I attended university. What to do with the fields, the vineyards, the olive groves?

Sell ​​them? Rent them?

No, absolutely no!

And so, it was that Sara and I decided to become full-time farmers

It was an extremely important decision but not too difficult

To close with the fields would have been like losing a part of our identity. Our company wasn’t just all work. We felt it was a part of home, part of the family. There are a thousand memories of Grandfather on his trusty Fiat 640, of the harvests and harvesters, of the grapes arriving in the cellar, of the rooms full of freshly picked olives, ready to be taken to the mill. Then as we got older, we often lent a hand. Although we are not protagonists but simple supporting actors, that was our reality and we felt part of it.

So, we wanted to prove ourselves. There was a lot to learn, to do and to change.   My grandfather produced Chianti and IGT wine, which he sold entirely in tanks to the large local bottlers. It produced olives whose oil gave almost entirely to the local Mill.

For me and Sara, that was the starting point, from which to move in small steps in a new direction. We wanted to open the cellar to people and sell our products directly. We therefore wanted to invest in quality, because if you produce something, you have to do your best and put your name on it

Quality starts from the vineyard, from the olive grove, and is the result of many small choices that the farmer makes over time. We need ethics, we need reflection, we need courage, we need a great desire to work and a little luck, because Nature cannot be controlled.

It was thus, with this spirit and these objectives, that after a few years of adjustment, La Doccia di Vinci was born in 2010..

Nature has its own dynamics, its own cycles and its own expressions. The human being is its son and as such he must respect it, without ever forgetting his own roots. However, man, with his creativity and the strength of reason, is also an inventor, artist and philosopher. Everything he creates is the full expression of his being, whether it is the brightest conquest or the murkiest wickedness. Each individual has the faculty to act for better or for worse, choosing according to his own ethics.

Making wine does not simply mean picking grapes, squeezing them and waiting confidently in providence. For the winemaker, getting to the wine means making many small choices throughout the year, the sum of which will be clear and visible after some time, in a glass. To make you understand, you have to choose where and how to plant the vineyard, when and how to prune it, when and how to manage it, when and how to harvest, and then how and when to work in the cellar. Specifically, do I do green manure? when do I start harvesting? which grapes do I pick first? With what product do I deter the vats? how long does maceration last this year for this grape? What cap do I use for the barriques?

In short, wine is the son of the union between man and nature. If the winemaker changes, a usual vineyard will give a different wine. If the vineyard changes and the winemaker is the same, the wine will be different, again.