An afternoon spent in the green, to break the daily monotony.
Sometimes it only takes a little to find peace, and just a few minutes from Cesena, specifically in Roncofreddo (Longiano subzone) in the Villa Venti winery where “we can completely immerse ourselves in nature, feel its smells, its sounds, every tiny feature.” These were the introductory words of Mauro Giardini, owner of the winery, upon our arrival.
The winery was established by enthusiastically following respect for nature by espousing the philosophy of biodynamics for years. The place when they arrived in 2002 was abandoned. This allowed nature to take it by giving the soil a second life, thus causing it to lose all traces of pesticides or other chemicals-what nature offered was a forest full of life. Mauro decided to keep part of the land left to forest that day when he noticed blackbirds cleaning the vines of those insects that could ruin their cultivation.
The first feature I noticed as soon as I arrived was the technique with which they grow the plants. They are bush-trained vines, almost attached to the ground and trident, so that the fruit grows at the same distance and takes up nutrients equally, resulting in a more balanced grape that will allow better spontaneous fermentation.
Viticulture is presented as a tailor-made suit of the land. It fully embraces the factors that characterize it. Its exposure to the east is singular (one usually chooses south-facing vineyards) but here it plays a key role, in fact this orientation allows the plants to receive ideal irradiation that allows them to always be dry, preventing the proliferation of fungi that can ruin their cultivation. The sun exposure of this type also allows a late ripening, thus having a low-sugar berry, thus naturally going to replace all the subsequent interventions that would have served to rebalance the structural and alcoholic parts of the product.
Another innovative idea that plays a key role in the winery is the cement aging of their Sangiovese Riserva. This creates a perfect combination of flavors in the mouth, character, elegance and persistence, but also that small note of powderiness that we find in all their wines, an indistinguishable sign of their terroir, in fact they fully express their land, which generates nourishment for the plants, the respect for the fruit in the cellar, with the absence of chemical interventions. To keep the expression of the place and the land intact, they grow only native grape varieties such as Famoso, Centesimino and Sangiovese.
It is a source of pride that a winery with such an innovative vision exists in Cesena.
Villa Venti’s main label is “Primo Segno,” the winery’s first wine, which fully embodies the essence of the tale of the land, composed of 4 clones of Sangiovese, these grow according to the clays that make up the soil, thus resulting in a fresh and savory Sangiovese, with crisp hints of cherry, soft tannins, with an evolution during drinking.
