Ilaria Romano (née Bellotti) has taken over the running of this estate and the wines are as brilliant and energetic as ever. The white wines stood out at this year’s Real Wine Fair with their incomparable purity and raw energy. The reds are also worth the detour!
Over the years we have written a lot about Cascina degli Ulivi and its guiding spirit, Stefano Bellotti in the past, most notably in this appreciation of his life, work and the philosophy that guided him.
In brief, Cascina degli Ulivi produces wines from around 24 hectares of vines that have been worked biodynamically since 1985. The estate has been in the Bellotti family since the 1930’s but Stefano was the one who transformed it into what it is today. Before he took it over, the farm was more or less abandoned; Stefano, a city boy with no agricultural training, effectively started with a blank canvas. Through his own empirical observations, he progressively came to eschew chemicals in his vineyards, eventually leading him to the philosophies of Rudolph Steiner.
The whole farm is truly polycultural and committed to the fundamental beliefs of biodynamism. Vines are the main focus of the azienda, though vegetables, livestock, milk and cereals are all grown and cultivated. An agriturismo is attached to the farm, and practically everything served is raised and grown on the premises. According to Stefano:
“We consider that the soil is a ‘companion organism’ for everything that lives. In working our vines, we foster the potential harmony of all those forces that contribute to the flow of vitality (of the vine)”
The hard work and dedication is immediately evident in the vineyards where Stefano’s parcels are adjacent to other producers of the area. The health of the vines is immediately apparent to the eye.
The estate hand-harvests in small boxes and uses only the indigenous yeasts to ferment the wines. Use of oak is limited to large, successively-used barrels of traditional provenance. Some are huge, as large as 4000 litres. Whereas the white wines were once lightly filtered and sulphured, these two interventions have been completely omitted since the 2003 vintage in order to produce the purest expression of the land.
Ilaria Romano (née Bellotti) has taken over the running of this estate and the wines are as brilliant and energetic as ever. The white wines stood out at this year’s Real Wine Fair with their incomparable purity and raw energy. The reds are also worth the detour!
Le Mat du Raisin is a new red wine for us. The Barbera and Dolcetto grapes (the blend is 50/50) come from a two-hectare plot, with 60 year-old vines, trained in guyot and spurred cordon with a density of about 5000 vines per hectare. Biodynamics is practised. Treatments in the vineyard are limited to minimum use of sulphur and copper.
The fruit is hand-harvested (very low yields) with 80% destemmed and 20% left whole-bunch. Spontaneous fermentation is carried out with submerged cap with maceration on the skins for 7 days in 25hl and 32hl oak barrels. The wine is then aged in the same vessels and is bottled without filtration, fining or any addition of sulphur.
The Bellotti reds always smack of the earth. Le Mat has aromas redolent of blackberries, dark chocolate with a touch of brown spices. In the mouth, the flavours evoke bramble berries and herbs and there is a nice interplay between these two grapes of red and dark fruits, soft and sour-juicy and just enough tannin to give it some structure.
Why we love this: As well as espousing biodynamics and biodiversity, there is an unwillingness to compromise at any level in farming and winemaking. Cascina degli Ulivi set the triple A standard and continue to practise what they preach.
2020 Le Mat du Raisin
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Interested in finding more about the wines of Cascina degli Ulivi? Contact us directly:
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