Moore Brothers Blog: Meet the Winegrowers

Poggio Al Sole

winegrowers Greg Moore

Johannes and Kathrin Davaz There are eighteen contiguous hectares of sloping schistose clay that include the highest vineyards in Chianti, all perfectly sheltered from the Tramontane (north wind) by the surrounding oak forest. In addition to Solaia and Tignanello, neighbors include Fontodi, Castello dei Rampolla, and Villa Caffaggio. Documents in the archives of the abbey of Badia a Passignano, which owned Poggio al Sole until the 1960s, show that olives and wine were grown there as early as the 12th century. Johannes “Giovanni” Davaz was a newly minted enologist when his family bought the estate and he moved there in 1990.

Corzano e Paterno

winegrowers Greg Moore

Aljoscha Goldschmidt When Swiss architect Wendel Gelpke bought Corzano in the early 70s, he promised the Marchese Ippolito Niccolini that his run-down seventy-hectare estate would remain intact forever. He made the same covenant with the Marchesa Rangoni-Machiavelli, when he bought her Fattoria di Paterno. Together, they form a 140-hectare estate that produces some of the finest olive oil, sheep’s milk cheeses, and wine in all of Tuscany. A member of Wendel Gelpke’s family manages every activity, including the holiday rental of the beautifully restored farmhouses and apartments. Aljoscha Goldschmidt, who is the managing agronomist and winemaker, is Wendel Gelpke’s nephew. Aljoscha tells his story

Bele Casel

winegrowers David Moore

Luca Ferraro, his mother, Antonella, his sister, Paola, and his wife, Giulana Danilo Ferraro set out with the goal of producing fine, estate-bottled Prosecco in the early 1980s when he was an oenology student. His father-in-law had a hectare of old Glera (the grape that used to be known as Prosecco) and Malvasia, and sold the wine in in demijohn to locals.  After completing his studies, Danilo went to work at a nearby distillery, and helped his father-in-law in the vineyard in his spare time. He soon realized that Prosecco was the “heart and soul” of the Colli Asolani, and set out to establish what has become the leading estate in the region.  When we met him, his tiny winery was about the size of an American, two-car garage–producing the best Prosecco we’d ever tasted. Today Danilo continues the work with his son Luca, who oversees the organic farming of their vineyards…and the winery is a little larger, just off of the family home. Here's an Italian television

Château Viella

winegrowers Greg Moore

Alain Bortolussi and his family in Madiran In 1952, Alain Bortolussi's grandfather, an immigrant from the Veneto, purchased the eighteenth-century château and the surrounding 25 hectares of vines, which had just been classified under AOC regulations as Madiran and Pacherenc du Vic Bilh. At the time, it had almost no value. Over the next thirty-five years, most of the estate was replanted with the best clones of Tannat and Cabernet Franc for the Madiran, along with a tiny one-hectare parcel of local white varieties for the Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh. Alain, who is the first to bottle wine at the estate, took charge in 1991. When we met him in 2013, he was just completing the restoration of the château. In 2016, his daughters, Claire, and Marion, joined Alain at Château Viella, and in 2019, on Alain’s nominal “retirement,” have taken the reins of this jewel of a winegrowing estate.

Château Sipian

winegrowers Greg Moore

Frédéric Méhaye The estate lies on a privileged location: atop a rare mound of Garonnaise gravel, looking directly down on the Gironde estuary. Château Sipian had always been classified a Cru Bourgeois of the Médoc, until the vineyards were pulled up and abandoned in the 1950s. Bernard and Nicole Méhaye purchased the estate in 1978, and planted the first seven hectares of Merlot. But the real history of Château Sipian begins with their son Frédéric, whose risk-taking vision and hard work have lifted the estate into the front rank of Médoc producers. Today, Frédéric’s son, Quentin Méhaye, has taken over responsibility for much of the work in the twenty-five hectares of mostly 30-year-old vines.

Agricola Ca’ La Bionda

winegrowers Greg Moore

Alessandro Castellani in the Casal Vegri vineyard Ca’ La Bionda was founded in 1902 by Pietro Castellani, Alessandro’s great grandfather, who was a passionate grape grower and winemaker. The east facing hillside vineyards extend over 29 hectares in the commune of Marano di Valpolicella, northwest of Verona, in the heart of the Valpolicella Classico zone. Only traditional varieties, including Corvina Veronese, Corvinone, and Rondinella are grown (there are no international varieties), and the farming is entirely organic. Particular attention and care are given to the delicate process of drying the grapes for the production of the Amarone and the sweet Reciotto.

Working the Soils in Organic Winegrowing

winegrowers David Moore

Treating esca, organically, Here's Greg Moore and Peter Fischer of Château Revelette discussing the importance of organic farming in winegrowing. It's a good thing to let some weeds and wildflowers to grow among your vines - this attracts other life to the vineyards, helping to maintain balance. It's also a good idea to cut these weeds and flowers so that they can return natural nutrients to the soil.

Proprietà Sperino

winegrowers Greg Moore

Luca De Marchi at Proprietà Sperino For more than thirty years at Isole e Olena in Chianti Classico, Paolo De Marchi has produced some of the greatest wines ever to come out of Italy. But he always nurtured another dream: to bring back the wine of Proprietà Sperino, the original De Marchi family estate in Lessona, in the Alpine foothills of northern Piemonte, where the last vintage had been harvested in 1952. If you scoop up the soil in Lessona only a half-hour after a heavy rain, it runs through your fingers like sand in an hourglass. The climate is dry, and a cool breeze blows down from the Alps to the north. A hundred years ago, the wines grown here by Felice Sperino, Paolo De Marchi’s great, great uncle, were the most expensive wines in Italy. Today, after twenty years of arduous work replanting the vineyards and renovating the winery, Paolo and his son Luca have given new life to Proprietà Sperino, and are now the vanguard of the renaissance of this historic wine growing

Mas de Libian

winegrowers Greg Moore

Catherine Thibon and Nestor Jean-Pierre Thibon’s family has operated the Mas de Libian in Saint-Marcel d’Ardèche since 1670. He and his cardiologist wife, Jacqueline, have three daughters: Hélène, Catherine, and Cécile. In 1995, Hélène, Catherine, and Hélène’s husband Alain Macagno assumed responsibility for viticulture and winemaking, and began to estate-bottle the wine, rather than sell it in bulk to négociants. Long before it was fashionable, the Mas de Libian was an organic farm, and in 2005 Hélène introduced the demanding practice of biodynamics. Catherine does much of the vineyard work herself, with the help of “Nestor,” a charming Comptois draft horse who is encouraged by his canine stable mates “Sophia” and “Éclair.”

Trousse-Chemise

winegrowers Greg Moore

Anne Sery Martindale in Oregon Anne Sery Martindale was born on the island of Réunion, an overseas French Department in the Indian Ocean about 450 miles east of Madagascar. Her father was a diplomat and a serious collector of Burgundy, so the family dinner table often featured bottles from producers like Ghislaine Barthod, Christophe Roumier, and Louis Boillot, which sparked Anne’s own passion for Pinot Noir, and led her to pursue winemaking as a profession. In 2008, after graduating from the Faculté de Bordeaux, where she studied with the famed enologist Denis Dubourdieu, Anne moved to Oregon, and continued her training with Laurent Montalieu at Soléna Estate in Yamhill. Currently, Anne is a winemaker at NW Wine Company in McMinnville, which gives her access to some of the best grapes in Oregon, as well as a state of the art facility for custom winemaking.