The Project

Chiara Condello - Le Lucciole was born from the awareness of being a keeper of a wine growing history that was written and handed down for hundreds of years in the Predappio hills and by my desire to give a revolutionary interpretation to this unique, generous land. I work following a concept: I would love to produce a wine that express the high potential of my land, releasing it from all the things that are not essential. A Sangiovese that returns exactly my ideas of winemaking.
I have chosen a little piece of land close to a forest, in the heart of the appellation Predappio, in between 150 and 300 meters above sea level. Here the vines are deeply rooted in a poor calcareous-clay soil which is rich in pliocenic sandstones called Spungone. Here 3 million years ago there was a sea, and from here I started working to produce a wine that is the expression of this uniqueness.

Philosophy

In my wines I seek the authentic expression of my land, its history, its soul. I imagine a bright pure wine, that is born from the unrepeatable conditions of the vintage and of its terroir of origin. To reach that, I have decided to work in a simple way, following the dictates of organic viticulture and handcrafted winery management.

Respect

I have followed a path: organic viticolture, attention and respect for the plants and the soil, manual workings, organic fertilization, mechanical weeding and a very low use of sulphur and copper for crop-pest control. Before being a good winemaker, it’s important to have helthy and balanced vineyards. That’s why I follow the vineyards every day, with the goal of bringing in the cellar an healthy and mature grape that does not require any correction.

Artisan work

The harvest is manual and the works in the cellar are governed by the principle of respect for the grapes and the timing required by the Sangiovese. Fermentation vats are filled by gravity and and I am opposed to anything that can bring standardization, so my way of vinifying preserves all the sources of diversity: indigenous yeast fermentation, very little temperature control and long maceration. The ageing takes place in slavonian oak barrels before being completed in the bottle, where the wine is put without being filtered.