Pandolfa | Noelia Ricci

In 1941, Giuseppe Ricci bought the run-down estate, renovated it over many years and recultivated the agricultural land, even then with the idea of growing wine here one day. His daughter Noelia Ricci was then the driving force, planting vineyards in the early 1970s and giving Pandolfa its first recognition. At that time, however, mass was more in demand than quality. The tourists on the nearby Adriatic beaches around Rimini wanted a lot of wine, but cheap wine. How good the Sangiovese from the hills could be was to be recognised much later.

Noelia Ricci's daughter Paola consistently continued to implement her mother's visions, focusing on quality and on the higher, stonier sites, sedimentary rock that changes from grey deep loam of the plain to chalky light rock, interspersed with minerals and some sulphur. You can see - and taste - the difference clearly.

Today, if you leave the autostrada that connects Bologna with Rimini and head south at Forli, the winding road into the foothills of the Apennines begins. In Fumana di Predappio stands the magnificent old villa, almost like a chateaux in Bordeaux, in the midst of vineyards, a typical old Italian aristocratic country residence. Today it mainly serves presentations, festivities and weddings. The striking labels of the Pandolfa wines are reminiscent of this, as the pastel colours of the villa can be found again. The painting itself is based on a painting by the Renaissance painter Piero della Francesco, who portrayed Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the ruler of Rimini, around 1450, with a modern ironic twist. The original hangs in the Louvre. The middle name was the eponym for the villa and the house's top Sangiovese.

Paola's son, Marco Cirese, is now the fourth generation to be in charge of wine production, together with his oenologist Paolo Salvi. He reduced the cultivation area from 85 to 39 hectares today and eliminated the international red wine varieties - "they thrive better elsewhere". Today, mainly Sangiovese grapes are grown in close-to-nature cultivation, "an autochthonous clone that is closer to Brunello than to Chianti", which also actually taste different from Tuscany. More rounded, with strong but crumbly tannins. This produces the three single-varietal Sangiovese Federico, Pandolfo and the Riserva. In addition, only a little white wine made from Chardonnay and a very drinkable rosé are pressed. The wines of Villa Pandolfa can be described as great value for money.

In 2010, Marco Cirese created a new wine line from the highest 9 hectares of cru vineyards, named after his grandmother, the visionary Noelia Ricci, quasi as an homage. Only 4,500 vines per hectare with low yields are the basis of the three Sangiovese Superiore specialities. Natural cultivation in the stony, chalky-mineral hills of the Apennines at up to 340 metres above sea level. Supplied with excellent ventilation by the sea, which is only a few kilometres away, during the day and flooded with cool downward winds from the mountains at night, a microclimate with warm days and cool nights is created here, which makes for a crystal-clear wonderful fruit. Some call this the most Burgundian Sangiovese in Romagna. In any case, "Il Sangiovese" and the Cru "Godenza" have already received the highest awards, above all the coveted "Tre bicchieri" of the Gambero Rosso, probably the highest award a wine can achieve in Italy.

Marco Cirese calls his style of Noelia Ricci wines "slow", derived from the slow food movement, and he vinifies all wines only in stainless steel tanks slowly and carefully, with the least influence in the cellar. The cultivation has been certified organic since 2021, with a lot of manual work in the vineyard and manual harvesting into small boxes. SUPERIORE.DE