Arnaldo Rossi

This year witnessed my first encounters with the world of natural wines. Skeptical, yet curious, I ask myself if it was truly possible to make wine without using chemical additives in the field, and, even more importantly in the cellar.

After some initial hesitation, as a true rookie and without any oenological heritage, I planted the Dodo Vineyard (3500 sq.mt, a little less than one acre), Sangiovese grapes only, free-standing vines arranged in a septence (from the latin septunx) pattern (adjacent hexagons with one vine in the center and six more at the vertices). The density of vines was so high that a rumor was started that I had planted a grapevine nursery. The soil presents a good percentage of clay, a key component in the success of this site.

Thanks to the precious help of my friend and vintner Marco Tanganelli, my first wine came to life inside his cellar.

Against many perplexities of others, and “in obstinate and contrary direction”, the first 220 one-liter bottles were released. The result was quite encouraging.

What started as a simple hobby, became an activity I truly enjoyed, and I planted my second plot of vineyard (6000 sq.mt, or 1.5 acres), next to the Montecchio Castle, which in the 1300’s was the residence of Giovanni l’Acuto (John Hawkwood), captain of fortune, atop a ridge in the middle of a pristine forest, with a soil rich in marly rocks, reminiscent for me of beautiful sites in Chianti. I continued with using only Sangiovese grapes.

The 2011 and 2012 vintages taught me that things were not as easy as I believed.

Saw the release of the first bottle of Sella dell’Acuto from the rocky vineyard. The wine was good, but different from my expectations. It’s a wine based on elegance and fruit, so I will have to learn how to interact with this specific vineyard in the following vintages.

I became passionate with the “vite maritata” (literally, married vine) training method, which today has almost entirely vanished, which is an antique system of training the vine up on specific varieties of trees, typical of central Italy, and other parts too.

I found a small property with more than 180 century-old vines, “married” to field maples (Acer negundo), many being ungrafted native red and white grape varieties, completely unknown today. The property had been abandoned and it took three years of restauration to free the trees and their vines from understory overgrowth and to have a first production of quality grapes.

The first bottle of Cibino was released. This is a macerated white wine from the grapes of the “married” vines. The fact that I decided to pick all the varieties at the same time, resulted in a rather undescript wine.

At the end of August a huge hail storm damaged the grapes of the Dodo vineyard. I immediately harvested them and decided to make a rosé wine. GemmaRosa was thus born, and I discover that for me our summer wine should be exactly like this - fragrant, intense, but with a light body.

Finally I was able to work in my own cellar. I have Marco to thank, but from then on, I had to walk in my own shoes. I was still missing a lot of equipment, but having the wine right at home, made me more careful and conscious of my own choices.

The harvest of the grapes for Cibino happened at three different times. That was the way I liked it. This turned out to be its definitive version.

Dodo and Sella dell’Acuto, year after year started expressing their own differences, the clay in the soil of the Dodo gives the wine a lot of body, and the stones of the Sella give the wine depth, as it does in the best expressions of Chianti Classico.

An ambitious and crazy project was born. Starting a mountain vineyard. Mount Ginezzo (928mt – 3044 feet) above Cortona turned out to be the perfect site. I therefore asked Stefano Amerighi for help. He’s a very capable vintner and together we brought vines at elevations that up until not so long ago would have been unthinkable.

With the centenarian married vines of Sanforte grape variety I made the GemmaRosa in its definitive version.

Stefano and I planted the vineyard in Ginezzo (8000 sq.mt – 2 acres). In my half we put Sangiovese, and in Stefano’s only Syrah.

I was able to acquire some land next to Dodo and I planted another vineyard (3500 sq.mt – 0.86 acres) with scions from the Dodo Sangiovese. This way the number of Dodo bottles would finally increase.

The Azienda Agricola Arnaldo Rossi was born. My investments were not over, so I purchased a beautiful plot of land next to my cellar.

I planted the Vigna Nuova vineyard (11000 sq. mt – 2.72 acres) using for the most part scions taken from the “married” vines, both red and white grape varieties. Finally, I acquired enough vineyards to render my whole enterprise sustainable.

The expansion of my cellar became operative, and finally, I have all the equipment to satisfy my ambitions.