10/15/2024
Wrapping up our Wine Club focus on Lazio for the months of September and October.
You know, you start something with a vision and so much effort and sleepless nights (weeks) and money go into sheep do***ng that dream in the direction you want, or think, it’s supposed to go in. What I could have never anticipated, and still can’t, is how that vision and dream changes and starts taking on a life of its own. That collaborations with the right people are sometimes more important than you controlling that vision or idea.
Cittavino & Co. is about supporting small growers in Italy, it still is, but as I fortunately get to spend more and more time with such devoted and passionate people, I see how they affect my life and daily choices: committing to the backyard garden, farmers market shopping as a norm. Am I living the life my wine lives?
In addition to the wines, what’s notable is that these producers live their lives according to values and principles that they set forth in the vineyard- it’s not a checklist of buzzwords, it’s a cyclical investment into enriching their lives, those around them, while being agricultural custodians. Each of these producers does more than wine, and at times were more enthusiastic about sharing their experiments with grain varieties and cheese making then they were wine. Each of them has their own approach to grape growing and even vine training- but all were rooted in some form of regenerative agriculture. They really are revolutionaries and I’m so pumped I get to be a part of it and share it all with you.
1. September’s Wine Club
2. .noro of showing us the Senatore Capelli grain and how they don’t have to replant nearly as often as the norm because of their Biodynamic practices
3. chatting Biodynamics. We had the fortune of trying their Rosciola bottling- they are the only producers in the world with a documented vineyard of this grape. It was f*cking dynamite
4. Joy Kull from showing us her vine training system that saved them from the perospera devastation in 2023
5. chatting Aleatico and volcanic soils with my fellow baddie
