We try to be in Campania for the October harvest every year. This time we drove up to San Paolo di Tufo before sunrise to walk the Vigna Cicogna with Gabriella Ferrara. The hillside is steep enough that the tractor can only work it across the contour; the rest is done by hand, the way it has always been done here.
The hillside that gives the wine its name
Tufo takes its name from the soft volcanic tuff that underlies the village — and from the sulphur mines that once fuelled the local economy. The same sulphur infuses the Greco grapes with a smoky, gunmetal minerality you simply do not find in warmer, flatter vineyards. Gabriella harvests late, by hand, and never rushes the lees. 'Patience is the whole secret of San Paolo,' she told me, tasting a grape off the vine.
Greco di Tufo only reveals its true nerve after it has rested. We harvest by hand, late, and never rush the lees.
By mid-morning the pickers had filled the first crates and the sun was on the slope. We tasted last year's vintage from the tank — still tight, still closed, but with that extraordinary saline edge already coming through. It is the wine that taught me what 'minerality' actually means in a glass.
Why we keep going back
Every bottle of Vigna Cicogna we ship to the UK started on this exact hillside, in this exact week, picked by these exact hands. That is the point of sourcing directly. You can taste the place — and, if you are lucky, you can stand in it.
