Collecapretta Ciliegiolo Lautizio 2024

More about Collecapretta

Collecapretta (Hill of Goats) was the name that the Romans gave to the tiny hamlet that has been home to the Mattioli family since the 1100’s. Generations of Mattioli's have cultivated these rugged hillsides in the southernmost tip of Umbria. Located just outside town of Spoleto, in the nearly impossible to find village of Terzo la Pieve, today's farm is a scant 8 hectares in total; 2 planted to a mixture of local olives trees, 2 ha of farro and other ancient grains, and 4 ha of indigenous old vines.

The current caretakers are Vittorio Mattioli, his wife Anna and their daughter Annalisa. They live together with 3 generations of their family inside the tiny village overlooking the valley below with the Apennine Mountains and Gran Sasso looming in the background. Perhaps the key to these exceptional wines is the location of the vineyards. At 500+ meters and with soils that are a mixture of calcium and iron rich clay with outcroppings of tufa and travertine limestone, the property contains the raw material for crafting exceptional wies. Though the total production of Collecapretta is only some 8000 bottles in a good year, the family chooses to vinify many different cuvee's in hopes of expressing the vineyard and grape varieties at their best and most distinctive.

All the wines are made in much the same fashion: natural fermentation takes place in open-top cement containers without temperature control or sulfur additions. The wines then age for various amounts of time in glass-lined cement vats or resin tanks before bottling in synchrony with the waning lunar cycle. They use no sulfur at any point in the winemaking process. All farming in the vineyards is completely natural, only composts made from their own animals are used to aid vine health.