"An Uncommon Story"

Beyond the Confines of Abruzzo

Cantina Tollo is located in the Italian village of Tollo in the region of Abruzzo. The origins of the business, which sprang from need, are firmly rooted in our local history. The wine growers may have had neither name nor lineage but produced a wine that merited a position alongside more aristocratic vintages.

The ancient tradition of wine making in this part of the country is inseparably linked with the plight of the southern peasant farmers who were poor and owned just enough land to provide for the immediate family. The requirement to earn enough to live led to a solution in grapes and wine. One could say that their wine was truly life giving.

Nowadays the fame of Tollo's grapes and wine and the produce of its' own Cantina has spread beyond Abruzzo, Italy, and even Europe.

Cantina Tollo was set up relatively recently in 1960, twenty local people went to see a notary in order to set up a collective with the objective of providing a Cantina for the grapes of the local farmers. They were mostly small farmers, plus a couple of well educated types from the village of Tollo, with a tiny patch of land to their credit. Nowadays Cantina Tollo provides a  buyer for all the local farmers and is one of the biggest Cantina in Italy, it has about 1,200 members, sells 9 million litres of bottled wine, exports 15,000 tonnes of eating grapes, and cultivates around 9,000 hectares of vineyard. All this from the modest begginings of the 40 years ago.

Tollo is a town of farming folk, who in the long afternoons and evenings of winter are in the habit of meeting for a chat. They talk less about wine itself, more about the vine, and the land, each man being careful to guard his own secrets but keen to pick up those of the others. In the end, everyone knows everything, and that's how the art of cultivating the vine through a kind of complicity among growers gets passed down the generations. The farmers have an almost pagan devotion towards the vine, and the grape has its place in domestic lore as the protector of the home. After that comes the Cantina, the place where the wine is produced.

Cantina Tollo, summed up in a bottle

The farmers own little land individually, partly because of the nature of the countryside, and partly due to family histories and external events. Every grower ekes out his existence on these small patches of ground, working all out. Here lies Cantina Tollo's main strength : intensive care of the vineyard rests in the hands of those most concerned with the results. At the Cantina the day of the harvest is decided on area by area and grapes delivered to the Cantina. Here they are vetted load by load and sent on their way to their own pressing line. That's how wine is made, the grapes are given the name of the wine before they are pressed, each lot being assigned its own cycle and process. The wine is subject to only physical processes as wine is a living, delicate substance that must be handled without artifice.

The red wines that Cantina Tollo produces, Valle d'oro Montepulciano, Colle Secco Montepulciano, Colle Secco Rubino, and Cagiolo are first aged in casks and then stand in bottles, before being marketed. Montepulciano d'Abruzzo is a wine of many possibilities, if properly handled. The white wines, Trebbiano d'Abruzzo and Chardonnay are marketed new, as a vintage wine.

The land of wine and its seasons

Hills, as far as the eye can see, run down from the Appenine peaks, all the way to the shores of the Adriatic, and inbetween, all over these hills, which stand as though stacked against one another, is the land of wine.

The cold air blowing down from the Gran Sasso and Maiella blends in this area with the milder air from the sea. The result is a good climate, dry and cool in winter, and sun-drenched in the summer, which the grapes need to ripen thoroughly, increasing their sugar content, and driving the acids in the vine leaves down into the pips. Rainfall, as much as is needed - is between five and eight centimetres (2-3") per year.

The soil ranges from sandy to limestone. One of the vineyards produces a wine, Cagiolo, whose name calls to mind the way the farmers speak, and the limestone in the soil.

The harvest is one of the critical stages in wine growing. It lasts more than two months, from half-way through August almost up to the first cold weather in November. The grapes are transported directly to the Cantina and the wine making process begins.

Cantina Tollo has won many prizes and awards, both in Italy and elsewhere, and is a major sponsor of sport. For example, Cantina Tollo was Italy's official wine supplier to the Barcelona Olympics, and regularly runs teams in the tour de France.

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