San Giovenale

Contrary to expectations, Emanuele Pangrazi presses his award-winning premium wines in an area of Lazio where many – given the lack of wine tradition – tend to produce olive oil. What does the courageous newcomer do differently in his organic winery San Giovenale? Our impression is: simply everything, because despite his still very young vines, he is already creating amazingly expressive red wines that are among the best-rated in the country.

Without any previous oenological knowledge, the winemaker's success story up to this point turned out to be a true voyage of discovery. In 2006, a spontaneous family trip led him to Blera, in the picturesque province of Viterbo. In the midst of this untouched nature, the Roman entrepreneur decided to harmonise the idea of his own winery with the hilly landscape of the historic Tuscia region and to preserve the natural area.

His land is surrounded by several natural parks and seems to be made for wine growing. The Sabatini Mountains to the south and the Monti Cimini to the north form a kind of corridor for a dry sea breeze blowing in from the Tyrrhenian Sea. But since local varieties such as Sangiovese find it difficult to thrive on the clayey subsoil, the winemaker worked with various consultants to find suitable grape varieties that would grow more effortlessly in this environment.

The encounter with the talented oenologist Marco Casolanetti from the renowned Oasi degli Angeli winery ultimately led to a groundbreaking insight: the soils, the breezy climate and the many hours of sunshine immediately reminded Casolanetti of the French Rhone Valley. In view of the similar conditions, it seemed most sensible to Emanuele to cultivate the typical varieties from the other side of the Mediterranean coast in order to produce the wines of San Giovenale from scratch according to his natural and environmentally friendly vision.

At an altitude of 400 metres, he planted Carignan, Grenache, Syrah, Tempranillo and Cabernet Franc according to the Alberello system – that is, without the typical wires connecting the vines. Starting with the choice of Marco Casolanetti as advisor, every decision is made in favour of sustainability and quality. Instead of chemicals, natural products based on garlic, algae or propolis are used in these vineyards.

In the wine cellar – an architectural work of art that completely dispenses with fossil fuels – his hand-picked grapes macerate for about two weeks in the most modern steel tanks. Emanuele is also particularly fond of spontaneous fermentation, initiated by indigenous yeasts, and at the end of this process he transfers all the wines to new French barriques, where they mature over a period of 20 months.

"I think it's the small details that distinguish a good wine from a great one," Emanuele tells us in conversation, explaining why he scrutinises every step of production, no matter how small. No wonder, then, that he manages to impress even the most demanding wine lovers with his Habemus wines, not only as a qualitative pioneer of the region. SUPERIORE.DE