DANIELA and ANTONIO DE GRUTTOLA
CANTINA GIARDINO
DANIELA and ANTONIO DE GRUTTOLA
CANTINA GIARDINO
Cantina Giardino in Ariano Irpino, today one of the most beloved natural wineries in the world and an object of veneration in enlightened markets like Japan, now is comprised of about 7 hectares at high elevation in Campania’s rugged and mountainous Irpinia, but began its adventure in the late 90’s with sheer passion for real wine and terroir and garage vinification.
Daniela and Antonio De Gruttola, having witnessed in horror the devastation inflicted on their land by industrial farming and conventional vinification, which explanted old local vines to plant and chemically farm international varieties, decided to do something about it. Having begun to seek out old parcels of local grapes such as Aglianico, Greco, Fiano and Coda di Volpe, they started to rent them, acquiring some of them in the process, from elderly farmers who had always worked naturally.
They thus gave life to a passion project that, beyond simply making admittedly outstanding natural wine, aims to revive a cultural and winemaking tradition which was disappearing. They now tend to wines no younger than 50 years old and that reach up to 100, spread over more than 20 parcels, obviously farming and making wine super-naturally, with wild fermentations and no added SO2.
Always experimenting with new cuvées but with a very firm focus on historical tradition, they use containers such as clay and grès amphoras and traditional local wood such as cherry, chestnut and acacia. These are wines of soul, heart, spirit and flesh, always magnificent and titanic.
