For more than 100 years, the Scammacca del Murgo family has cultivated vines and olives under the fiery gaze of Mount Etna in Sicily. More than once this active volcano has destroyed vineyard plots and covered their family home under ash—events that would rattle the nerves of even the most daredevil winemakers. Yet for the Scammacca del Murgo clan, it’s just the price one pays for the privilege of growing vines in one of the more dynamic and breathtaking wine regions on earth.
The history of artisanal winemaking in the Aeolian Islands off the coast of Sicily essentially begins with five Spanish families, one of which is Caravaglio. These noble pioneers were invited to travel to these wild, volcanic islands in the early 1500s to develop agriculture. Thus for more than 500 years, the Caravaglios have cultivated wine grapes on Salina and Lipari, establishing early on the traditions and practices that would be followed for generations.
Hand-crafted from field to bottle, craft shared as tradition from generation to generation—this is what makes Barbaresco from Azienda Agricola Ronchi so special. Winemaker Giancarlo Rocca and three generations of the Rocca clan live in a house built by the family, surrounded by ‘Ronchi’ cru vines.
Four generations of the Basso family have lived and worked in these mountains above the Mediterranean sea, struggling with the elements to care for older vines grown in garden-sized plots more suitable for gnomes. Liguria’s vibrant patchwork of vines, fruit trees and wild scrub has one particular star: Pigato.
With its vineyards in the shadows of the towering Dolomites, Friuli is the true home of the Glera grape and therefore the source of the most aromatic, vinous, elegant and true Prosecco wines. For more than three generations, the Fantinel family of Azienda Agricola Zuccolo has championed Glera on its native soils and cultivated vines from family-owned mountain vineyards, harvested by hand.
Since the end of the nineteenth century, the Troisi family has championed the wines of Irpina, a historic vine-growing region in central Italy. Winemaker Raffaele Troisi’s father Antonio, in the 1980s, was one of the first growers to bottle a single-variety Fiano wine. The family’s very high-altitude vineyards and the region’s volcanic soils combine for single-variety wines of impeccable finesse.
Elisabetta Musto Carmelitano and her brother, Luigi, are the driving force behind this family estate. Neither sibling formally studied winemaking, but both have rather lived the craft, learning from family members how to care for Aglianico vines and make their wines.
Terres Secrètes is one of France’s more celebrated cooperative wineries, founded in the 1950s and supported by dozens of talented growers in the greater Mâconnais.
Eve and Michel Rey produce natural, honest white Burgundy in miniscule quantities from the finest terroir in the Mâconnais. Their ‘La Roche’ vineyard in Mâcon-Vergisson is not only the highest vineyard in the appellation but also delivers the purest expressions of Chardonnay in the region, bar none.
From the commune of La Roche Vineuse, one of the Mâconnais’ more qualitatively excellent sites, winemaker Thomas Perraud of Domaine Perraud de la Grande Burette selects only older-vine fruit for our special selection, a value in white Burgundy that can’t be beat.
