Lhe Terre Margaritelli estate is located in the heart of Umbria, a region in central Italy. Along with Marche and Abruzzo, the Italians call this area “the green heart of the country”. Umbria boasts a very strong wine-growing tradition, but has long suffered from the shadow of its neighbour, Tuscany. Known for its white wines from the Orvieto-Classico DOC, giving fresh wines with citrus notes from the Trebbiano grape variety, or richer and more mineral ones from Grechetto, the regional vineyard also produces increasingly renowned reds. The Torgiano DOC, one of the first appellations in the country, gives fleshy and fruity wines while the Montefalco-Sagrantino DOC is a powerful and robust wine with aromas of candied cherry. The local grape varieties are well highlighted, which makes it a particularly interesting and pleasant region to discover.
To reach the estate, we go up a large driveway lined with olive trees. The sun beats down like every day, at the end of October. It’s the end of the lunch break, all the workers have lunch together. We are welcomed by Federico, one of the managers of the estate, and start with a short tour of the vines. Totaling around sixty hectares, they are all located around the estate. Unlike France, it is quite rare in Italy to find a vineyard gathered in a single area around the property. Federico tells us the history of the estate.
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Terre Margaritelli was created in 1950 by Fernando Margaritelli who, passionate about vines, retired from business at the age of 60 to start cultivating the land. At the time, he produced his wine only for pleasure and, in small quantities, for the family. It was only 50 years later, in 2000, that his son, Giuseppe Margaritelli, decided to expand the property and create the Terre Margaritelli estate.
In the vineyard: local grape varieties and organic farming
Then began the replanting of the vineyard, the first vinifications and the transition to organic. Today, the company is totally organic. The estate has a total of 16 grape varieties, local and international. This diversity makes it possible to have a sufficient playing field for numerous experiments. The sunshine is ideal and the wind, which continuously refreshes the vineyard, contributes to the good ripening of the grapes and prevents disease. This favorable exposure to the organic management of the vines is optimal for the production of Torgiano. As in most organic and biodynamic fields, various methods are used. At Terre Margaritelli, insect houses are installed near the vines to promote biodiversity. Succulents are sown between the rows. Grazing, they do not need to be mowed and have the advantage of resisting drought. Not requiring a lot of water, they do not compete with the vines and contribute to the fight against weeds.
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At harvest time, sorting is mainly done in the vineyard. The yield is much lower than the possibility of production, but the choice is to favor quality over quantity. The structure of the soil is very interesting: on the surface we find clay which brings richness to the wine and, deeper down, sand bringing structure and body. Deeper still, stone, for a mineral expression of the wine. But even if the majority of the work takes place in the vineyard, because it is important to have grapes of high quality, healthy and at the right maturity, we can see that a huge effort has been made on the breeding containers of the wine (oak barrels).
The barrels: a successful Franco-Italian collaboration
The Margaritelli family is intimately linked to the production of wood. The main activity of the father was the sale of wood, for, among others, industry and the railways. In 1962, in order to control the entire railway sleeper production chain, he built a sawmill in France to source oak directly from French forests. The headquarters of the sawmill is located in Fontaine, 25 km from Beaune, in the heart of Burgundy, a region rich in forests. A privileged location that today allows the Margaritelli family to find the ideal wood to make its barrels. Twenty years ago, the family launched a research project in collaboration with a French group specializing in forest management and cooperage. In order to verify the impact of the origin of the oak on the aging of the wine, barrels were made with wood from different forests.
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The same wine made from pinot noir from the 2002 vintage was aged in all the barrels. In early 2004, a tasting was organized with professional sommeliers who filled out a tasting sheet describing the characteristics of each cuvée. On the basis of this research, Terre Margaritelli has chosen to exclusively select oak from the forest of Bertrange, in Burgundy, for the making of its barrels. The wood accompanies the wine in its maturation and allows a delicate ageing, without excessive woody taste. Very pure expression of the fruit, freshness and balsamic notes are the aromas that stand out, all in subtlety. It is a very precise method, the result of patient research. An investment over several years with the desire to find the container best suited to the wines of Terre Margaritelli, one of the only areas to master the entire process, from the production of wood to the making of barrels. The barrels are currently all supplied by the Burgundian cooperage Toutant. A successful Franco-Italian collaboration.
Tasting: racy wines of great precision
We start with a Sangiovese-based rosé that reveals saline and ferruginous notes, far from the classic universe of “freshness and gourmet aromas of grapefruit”. A salivating and very subtle wine that takes us directly into the world of Terre Margaritelli… We continue the tasting and discover a white from a local grape variety, the grechetto, aged in these famous French barrels of Bertranges. We then understand the philosophy of the estate. The bouquet is fabulous and reveals finesse: wisteria, orange blossom, bitter almond, sap and honey. After the rosé, a second favourite! Our enthusiasm is confirmed with the Torgiano Riserva, 100% Sangiovese. A red that amazes us with the richness of its aromas of jammy wild fruits, the notes of cold tobacco and cigar box and above all with its length in the mouth.
We finally discover the canaiolo nero, a variety that has become rare, today vinified as a sweet wine. The cuvée is baptized Simon de Brion in honor of a 13th century pope.e century having ended its life in Pérouges. A lover of good food, he used to enjoy eels washed down with canaiolo nero wine. Eight hundred years later, the grape variety is given pride of place in this passito (a term designating a sweet wine made from raisined grapes) that we would accompany, for lack of eels, with a dessert or a parsley cheese.
www.terremargaritelli.com
Zoé Knauf and Clara Tanguy met at the Suze-la-Rousse wine university, where they completed their studies with a wine sales certification. To deepen their knowledge, they set out to survey a few foreign vineyards in order to understand the challenges that climate change poses to viticulture. This is their logbook.