It’s late October and Elena Fucci is about to start the 2022 harvest. Her vines are planted at 600 metres above sea degree within the volcanic soils of Monte Vulture within the Basilicata area and, regardless of being very far south – between Italy’s toe and heel – the nights are already chilly right here.
‘I’m all the time the final to begin selecting my grapes,’ she says. ‘However for me, that’s a bonus: my six hectares of vineyards are planted to Aglianico, which is a late-ripening crimson selection, and that’s a giant assist in our more and more scorching summers.’
In July and August, as an alternative of struggling an excessive amount of warmth stress, Aglianico shuts down its photosynthesis and the vines subsist on minimal power till September, when the berries flip from inexperienced to crimson and resume ripening. ‘That stops the fruit from overcooking,’ Fucci explains. ‘The local weather disaster is bringing an appreciation for late-ripening varieties – together with Piedmont’s Nebbiolo and Umbria’s Sagrantino – for his or her skill to deal with altering rising circumstances.’
A brand new push
Fucci, who was born in 1981, is on the epicentre of the ‘renaissance’ of the Aglianico grape in Basilicata. The area is one among Italy’s smallest, with simply 580,000 inhabitants. The Aglianico del Vulture regional consorzio has 60 members, however solely about 20 of those promote their wines overseas. Fucci is a member of Generazione Vulture, a bunch of eight of these wineries. They’re all run by younger winemakers positioned across the extinct volcano, devoted to revitalising the wines and picture of this historic indigenous selection.
Whereas a few of her co-members are youngsters of winemakers or grew up round wine, Fucci is totally different. ‘I began from zero,’ she says. ‘I used to be a Coke-drinking scholar with little to no wine tradition, although my grandfather did develop grapes to promote to the native cooperative.’
Her determination to run the property was made in 2000 when her dad and mom, each academics, had been debating whether or not to promote the land and the Sixteenth-century casa colonica (‘farmhouse’) in Barile, within the coronary heart of the DOC area, the place she grew up. ‘I had simply completed highschool and had been contemplating a profession in genetic engineering, however I felt I couldn’t let that sale occur. So I obtained a level in oenology and agronomy in Pisa earlier than coming again down right here in 2005. My bond with this space was too robust to interrupt.’
Fucci’s great-grandfather, Nicola Salvatore, had labored these vineyards as a labourer once they had been a part of a latifondo, the system of very giant agricultural estates, normally owned by landlords dwelling within the north, that was prevalent within the south of Italy till the Fifties. ‘Below the mid-century land reforms, my grandfather was capable of purchase these vineyards and 1.5 hectares of olive groves from the Tuscan landowner.’
Her dad and mom had been delighted with Fucci’s determination. ‘We cleared out the outdated cellar and acquired began,’ she remembers. ‘My first harvest produced simply 1,200 bottles and I offered the remainder of the grapes. Now, 17 years later, I’m producing 35,000 bottles per 12 months.’ She additionally makes an extra-virgin olive oil.
Easy idea
Fucci’s vineyard and winery on the slopes of the extinct Monte Vulture volcano.
‘The volcano is 1,300 metres at its highest level and my land is in a single giant piece about as far up as vines will develop,’ she explains. ‘It’s uncommon to have such a giant winery on a mountainside, so my thought was quite simple: I’d make one wine from one grape in a single place – that’s a straightforward idea to speak.’
The vineyards are positioned in Contrada Solagna del Titolo, so she named her wine Titolo (‘title’). ‘Solagna means sun-facing, and the winery is sort of a massive amphitheatre on lavic soils with a slight incline,’ she says.
Three hectares accommodate 60- to 70-year-old vines, whereas 1.5ha had been replanted by her grandfather Generoso in 1998, and the remaining 1.5ha had been planted in 2002. In 2020, Fucci purchased a further 1.5ha of vineyards close by.
Fucci’s Titolo wines – Classico, Riserva, By Amphora and Pink – all stem from that one giant winery, with Pink utilizing its youngest grapes.
‘I’m a younger girl and my wine needs to be trendy, not modernist,’ Fucci says. ‘I respect this grape and the distinctive terroir it comes from. That was not all the time the case right here.’ As in Sicily, Puglia and different southern Italian areas, grapes in Basilicata had been usually offered to cooperatives or exported as bulk wine to secretly bolster the color and alcohol ranges of northern Italian and European wines.
‘Basilicata was no exception to this commerce, and our strategy to Aglianico suffered because of this,’ she continues. ‘We now realise that was a mistake. Aglianico is a really worthy grape to drink by itself when it’s dealt with correctly.’ She says that, for her, the secret’s ‘to deal with acquiring good phenolic maturity within the winery’.
‘Science may also help us to make higher wines, and we do quite a lot of grape testing within the lab earlier than the harvest. I’ve seen how issues are finished in France and northern Italy and have introduced a number of the options they favour down right here, similar to utilizing a de-stemmer that leaves the berries entire, and an optical eye that may spot and reject unripe berries on the choice tables.’
Recent interpretation
Fucci’s trendy strategy contains quick macerations of about 15 days – not like the months that Aglianico was left to macerate by earlier generations. This retains the fruit in her wines full of life and recent, and reduces the reductive and excessively tannic notes which might be a attribute of ‘conventional’ Aglianico. Grapes are pressed delicately after maceration, and she or he favours chosen yeasts over spontaneous.
‘I’m extra interested by sustaining traditions within the winery than within the cellar,’ she says. ‘We proceed to reap by hand, and I feel there’s a reality behind the thought of planting vines shut collectively to drive their roots to go deeper.’ Fucci’s vines are planted at a density of 8,000-10,000 vines/ha. ‘We practice our vines utilizing the Guyot system, as is widespread right here now, however we even have a bunch of outdated vines that use a a lot older system known as a capanno,’ she explains. ‘It may be very time-consuming, as every freestanding vine requires three canes that want repositioning a number of occasions every season in relation to the solar and wind. However we need to hold this custom alive, if just for didactic causes.’
Fucci can be absolutely dedicated to the natural motion, and each her vineyards and cellar are licensed. ‘It’s a lot tougher to create a cellar that conforms to natural guidelines [compared with the vineyards],’ she says. ‘After I was planning my new cellar I didn’t got down to construct what we name a bioarchitettura, however I encountered some architects who work this manner. So the cellar was constructed primarily of recycled supplies, like metal and wooden from Vitalegno, and is cooled by rainwater and a system of wind-driven air pipes sandwiched inside cavity partitions that work like a Thermos. We use photo voltaic panels for power, too. In Italy we’re too tied to bricks; we must always use extra wooden, which can be significantly better in seismic areas similar to this.’ Her cellar is without doubt one of the first of its form in southern Italy and she or he sees it as a long-term funding.
Scientific sense
Harvesting the Aglianico del Vulture grapes
Fucci favours French barrels: both 500-litre tonneaux or 200-litre barrels that are smaller than the same old barriques. ‘Three French coopers produce barrels to my specs. I need to get the quicker micro-oxygenation that’s afforded by smaller barrels however with thicker staves to assist gradual that course of down,’ she describes. ‘This enables the polyphenols to get a greater and longer polymerisation, which leads to extra secure color and tannins.’
Fucci’s scientific bent is clearly stimulated by the technical elements of winemaking; she’s eager on experimenting, too. ‘I prefer to hold management of the wine manufacturing,’ she says. ‘After I noticed wines being made in egg-shaped amphorae – produced in Impruneta, close to Florence – I wished to attempt Aglianico that manner. I now use 4 of them and am happy with the outcomes. The wines are a bit extra concentrated and I’m fascinated by how the amphorae intensify the minerality and saltiness of our volcanic soils.’
Fucci’s wines, which recurrently rating extremely in tastings and win awards similar to Gambero Rosso’s Tre Bicchieri, are distinctive each for his or her readability and for his or her emphasis on the elegant fruit and freshness of this grape. The wine made within the impartial amphorae shows the pure spiciness and complexity of Aglianico when it’s not influenced by wooden, and her rosé, too, explores one more side of this nice Italian crimson grape.
What in regards to the future for the area? ‘I’m optimistic,’ she says. ‘Basilicata’s wine motion is in full swing, and if we will assist that with extra high-level accommodations to enhance our nice meals, the realm will change into significantly better recognized. I usually go to Tuscany with my husband. It’s such a “wow!” area and I all the time assume: in the event that they did it, why can’t we?’
