For more than 200 years from the 1700s, Conestabile della Staffa produced some of the finest wines in the region but with two world wars came a diminished farming workforce and from 1956, the estate ceased to make anything, forcing the vineyard to sell off their grapes for other people’s wine… and then Danilo came along. Former student of architecture and one-time Umbrian wine-seller, Danilo turned to natural winemaking in the early 2000s after discovering first-hand what the chemicals in industrially produced wines can do to the body. A chance tasting of a natural wine made by his parents’ neighbour Vittorio Mattioli began what Danilo describes as a ‘radical change’ in his life and within a week of drinking the amber colored white he joined Vittorio for what would become the first of many collaborations with the masters of natural winemaking across Italy. More than 12 hectares of vines were in need of some love when Danilo took the reins at Conestabile della Staffa but by 2015 he was able to release the estate’s first vintage in 60 years, featuring native grapes and natural processes, with no added sulphur – for Danilo, it is Mother Nature who determines the wine.
1 liter of easy-going and delicious texture of autumnal fruit. Super easy drinking, a perfect balance of crunchy cherry and roasted peppers with just a subtle hint of tobacco on the back end.
