Today, indigenous grape varieties and unique local terroirs represent absolutely necessary characteristics for the success of a wine, to the point that it is difficult to see how marketing could possibly substitute for nature, in those instances when such qualities are hampered in their expression.

We enjoy the good fortune of not having to confront this problem, since our wine production rests on the secure foundation of utterly unique local weather and soil conditions, those of the Alta Valle dell’Esino, or the upper valley of the Esino. We are located within the province of Macerata and a small section of the province of Ancona, in an almost-hidden corner of the earth; perhaps this characteristic makes it even more special, together with the fact that the only valley of any considerable size runs north-south, along an axis delimited by the communes of Castelraimondo (Macerata province) in the south and Cerreto D’esi (Ancona province) in the north.

All of the other large valleys in the Marche run west-east. Buried in the Apennine mountains, and in particular in the Macerata area’s pre-Apennine Monti Sibillini, they end abruptly at the Adriatic, rising high above the waters, whose breezes in turn temper their climate. Quite different is the situation here in this magnificent “basin” closed off from the sea, which experiences instead a continental-type climate, with significant swings of temperature between night and day, and throughout the year’s seasons, conditions that render grape-growing more arduous from the point of view of labour and quantity, but decidedly impressive from that of quality, since such difficulties are transformed into remarkably-high sensory quality, thus yielding austere, yet complex wines that over time can deliver sensory pleasure that are unrivalled among Italian wines. If, further, we bring into this picture the intriguing nature of its soils, with their fossils and mineral richness, relics of salt water present in the Palaeolithic, which now contribute to our wines their hallmarks of acidity, crispness, and sapidity, utterly inimitable elsewhere, then we find ourselves in the presence of an overall picture of distinctiveness and absolute quality that only mother nature could draw, an artwork that we, with our labours and dedication, strive to frame as worthily as possible.