The Letter of 1830, the Dragonflies & Productive Humanism
In a company archive in Crecchio, Chieti, a letter survives in which Camillo Di Carlo announces the family's first wine exportation — dated 1830. Six generations later, in the second half of the 1980s, Giannicola Di Carlo — bio-agronomist — took the reins and converted everything to organic farming, receiving ICEA certification in 1991 at the very moment the first EU organic regulation was promulgated: among the first certified organic wineries in Italy. The family built one of Europe's first bio-architecture wineries, recovered the natural yeasts of their soils, watched the dragonflies return — and named their amphora-aged, sulphite-free wines Terreum. Wine, says Giannicola, is a living product: the perfect synthesis between man and nature. They call their way of working Productive Humanism.
Origin — 1830, the Export Letter & Giannicola's Conversion
The history of the Di Carlo family overlaps with some of the oldest winemaking stories in Abruzzo. Proud winegrowers, tenaciously tied to the spirit of their land, the family were producing wine by the early nineteenth century — and the proof sits in the company archive: a preserved letter in which Camillo Di Carlo announces their first exportation, dated 1830. From then on, the passion for wine passed from father to son — a human and professional legacy the family still describes as a precious witness to bequeath to future generations.
The decisive figure of the modern era is Giannicola Di Carlo, a bio-agronomist who took the reins of the family wineries in the second half of the 1980s. His conversion was total: he converted all production to organic methods, and the estate — whose wines travel under the Vigna Madre label, named for the historic mother-vineyard of the Crecchio estates — became one of the first organic-certified wineries in Italy: ICEA (Institute for Environmental Ethics Certification) certified it in 1991, at the same moment as the promulgation of the first EU organic farming regulation (Reg. 2092/91).
Giannicola did not stop at organic. The estate's winery structure was one of the first in Europe to be built in bio-architecture; its vineyards were later certified among the first "Dynamic Energy Vineyards"; and cultivation follows the lunar and planetary phases, with bio-ethical, sustainable crops aimed at the living fertility of the soil. In 1991, Giannicola gave this integrated philosophy its enduring name: "Productive Humanism" — principles that treat the company as a link between man and the environment.
Today, under the Famiglia Di Carlo banner, the estate continues to exalt Abruzzo's local varieties — Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, Pecorino, Passerina and Cococciola — while experimenting with select international and other Italian varieties. To mark thirty years of organic production, Giannicola initiated a Signature Line echoing ancient winemaking traditions, and the family pursues an expanding "Wines for Life" project — revitalizing underutilized land for viticulture and promoting a circular, virtuous economy.
The Place — Crecchio, the Living Soil & the Dragonfly Test
The Vigna Madre vineyards lie in the Crecchio estates near Lanciano, in the hills of Chieti a short distance from the Adriatic — a terroir of medium-textured soils tending to clay, farmed organically without interruption since 1991. The family describes its wines as born of the recovery of land suitable for higher quality production: an agricultural recovery operation conducted with maximum respect for the soil and its natural reinvigoration. Around twenty hectares of vines carry indigenous Abruzzese varieties, alongside experimental plantings — and the farm's health is measured, quite literally, by its wildlife.
The Dragonfly Test
The Terreum wines are made "far from any source of pollution" — because, as the family puts it, "where a dragonfly flies, nature has won." Dragonflies are among the most sensitive bio-indicators on Earth: they live only where water and air are clean. To choose a dragonfly as the estate's emblem is to declare the farm an ecosystem first and a vineyard second — and to accept that the cleanest possible environment is the only vessel worthy of the wine.
Living Fertility & the Lunar Calendar
Cultivation follows the lunar and planetary phases, with bio-ethical and sustainable crops aimed at the living fertility of the soil — the farm treated as a link between man and environment. This is biodynamic-flavoured farming without the branding: no chemicals since 1991, cover and spontaneous vegetation managed by hand, and a conviction that the soil is a living subject, not a substrate.
Wines for Life — the Circular Farm
The family's expanding "Wines for Life" project revitalizes underutilized land for viticulture, turning abandoned plots into organic vineyards and promoting a circular and virtuous economy — wine as an engine of land rescue. In a region whose hills are dotted with forgotten parcels, the Di Carlos treat every recovered hectare as both an agricultural act and an environmental one.
The Historic Mother Vineyard
The name Vigna Madre — "mother vineyard" — honours the historic vineyard of the Di Carlo family in the Crecchio estates: clayey, dry-farmed, and the source of the estate's Montepulciano identity. Like Tiberio's Fonte Canale or Valle Reale's San Calisto, it is a mother in the literal sense — the vines from which the family's plantings and their idea of the grape descend. The label is the vineyard's signature.
Winemaking — Productive Humanism, Natural Yeasts & the Amphora
Giannicola Di Carlo's statement of philosophy is also the estate's winemaking manifesto: "Wine is a living product, son of the place, of the season and of culture too. It is the perfect synthesis between Man and Nature, between Man and a single place... it's the chance to transform limitations in values, to know a place towards knowledge and respect of Nature." From this flows the estate's most distinctive technical conviction: the recovery of natural yeasts, deliberately moving away from the standards of aromatic selected yeasts, giving the wines a taste intimately tied to the territory and restoring the centrality of the natural element.
The cellar expresses the same logic physically. The winery is one of the first in Europe built in bio-architecture — a building designed to breathe with its environment rather than fight it. And at the range's summit sit the Terreum wines: aged in amphora and made without added sulphites, born far from any source of pollution. Clay amphora is the oldest wine vessel on Earth and the most neutral of the ancient ones — it ferments and ages without flavouring, letting the recovered native yeasts speak the terroir's own dialect.
For the thirtieth anniversary of organic production, Giannicola initiated the Signature Line — wines that celebrate harmony with nature, where imperfections become exclusivity and naturalness is a source of pride. It is the most candid statement in this series: where others hide variation, the Di Carlos bottle it, trusting that the living character of a living product is the point, not the problem.
Every principle converges in one sentence the family has repeated since 1991: they consider themselves a link between man and the environment, selecting always the best in everything. Organic farming, bio-architecture, lunar calendars, native yeasts, amphora, no sulphites — all of it is one idea wearing different clothes. Productive Humanism: production in the service of the human place that hosts it.
The Wines — From the Mother Vineyard to the Amphora
The Vigna Madre range runs from the estate's organic DOC classics — Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, Trebbiano, Pecorino, Passerina and Cococciola, all from organic farming and fermented with recovered natural yeasts — to the celebratory Nobu 1830 line marking the family's 1830 export heritage, and the Terreum amphora wines made without added sulphites. Labels carry the family's shorthand — Giannicola Di Carlo's signature, the Vigna Madre brand, the date 1830 — on bottles produced, since 1991, inside one of Europe's first bio-architecture wineries.
Vigna Madre Montepulciano d'Abruzzo DOC
Red — Crecchio Estates, ChietiFrom the historic mother vineyard of the Crecchio estates — medium-textured soils tending to clay, farmed organically since 1991. Dry, full-bodied and fruity, fermented with the estate's recovered natural yeasts: the family's interpretation of Abruzzo's great red grape in its everyday, honest form. Six generations of Di Carlo viticulture in a single bottle of the variety they have grown since before the DOC existed. Organic. Natural yeasts.
Vigna Madre "Capo le Vigne"
Red — Crecchio, ChietiThe name translates as "head of the vineyards" — the estate's Montepulciano d'Abruzzo made from its most prestigious organic parcels, a step up in concentration and polish from the classic DOC. The same natural-yeast, no-shortcut philosophy, with greater depth and structure; a wine that shows what the Crecchio clay can do when the farming aims deliberately high. Organic. Natural yeasts. Limited.
Vigna Madre "Nobu 1830" Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Riserva
Signature Riserva — Crecchio, ChietiThe flagship of the Signature Line created by Giannicola Di Carlo to mark thirty years of organic production — its name honouring the family's 1830 export heritage and its founder's signature. A Riserva Montepulciano of the old school made the new way: organic fruit, natural yeasts, extended ageing, and the patience of six generations behind it. Where imperfections become exclusivity, and naturalness is a source of pride. Signature Line. Limited.
Vigna Madre Pecorino (Kriya & Terre di Chieti IGT) & Nobu 1830 Pecorino
Whites — Crecchio, ChietiThe estate's Pecorino comes in several registers — the organic Kriya Pecorino IGP Bio, fresh and mineral for early drinking; the Terre di Chieti IGT version carrying the region's broader canvas; and the Nobu 1830 Pecorino of the Signature Line, from Abruzzo's olive cultivars-and-ancient-traditions celebration — the white counterpart to the Riserva. Across all three: mountain acidity, savoury depth, and the natural yeast signature the family recovered deliberately. Organic. Natural yeasts.
Vigna Madre Trebbiano, Passerina & Cococciola
Whites — Crecchio, ChietiThe estate's white trio of indigenous varieties: Trebbiano d'Abruzzo as the backbone, Passerina for fragrance, and Cococciola — the rare, ancient Abruzzese variety almost no one bottles — as the family's quiet act of preservation. All organic, all natural-yeast fermented, all raised in the bio-architecture cellar. Together they form the estate's argument that Abruzzo's white heritage deserves the same reverence as its red. Organic. Natural yeasts.
Vigna Madre "Terreum" — Amphora, No Added Sulphites
Signature Line — Crecchio, ChietiThe summit of the range: wines aged in amphora and made without added sulphites, born far from any source of pollution — because where a dragonfly flies, nature has won. Fermented with the estate's own recovered yeasts and matured in clay, the Terreum wines are the purest expression of Productive Humanism: no corrections, no additions, no shortcuts — only the mother vineyard's fruit and the living soil it came from. Bottled variation is embraced: imperfections become exclusivity. No added sulphites. Extremely limited.
Giannicola Di Carlo — Ancestrale & Rosso da Uve Appassite
Sparkling & Appassimento — Terre di Chieti IGTBearing Giannicola's own signature, the estate's experimental wing: an Ancestrale — the oldest method of sparkling wine, bottled mid-fermentation with nothing added — and a Rosso da uve Appassite, Montepulciano dried Amarone-style into dense, raisined richness. Both speak the family's dialect of tradition: methods older than the regulations, revived with organic fruit and natural yeasts, and signed by the man who started it all in 1991. Organic. Natural yeasts. Limited.
Legacy — Productive Humanism Since 1991
The Di Carlo legacy begins with the letter of 1830 — documentary proof that this family was exporting Abruzzese wine when most of Europe's great estates were still selling in bulk to neighbours. Nearly two centuries of continuous winemaking, passed father to son, gives the family a claim few in the region can match: they did not enter wine; wine entered them.
But the modern legacy was authored by Giannicola Di Carlo in the late 1980s and sealed in 1991: ICEA certification at the very birth of the EU's organic regulation — among the first certified organic wineries in Italy, converted entirely and permanently. The estate went further than most of that pioneering cohort: one of Europe's first bio-architecture wineries, among the first "Dynamic Energy Vineyards," cultivation by the lunar calendar, and the deliberate recovery of natural yeasts at a time when aromatic selected yeasts were the industry standard. Where Jasci & Marchesani pioneered certified organic at scale in 1978, and Tiberio today refuses certification in the name of rigour, the Di Carlos stand at the philosophical centre: certified, pioneering, and unwavering for thirty-plus years.
The most individual contribution may be the vocabulary. "Productive Humanism" — the family has described its way of being winemakers since 1991 — reframes winegrowing as an ethical and cultural practice: the company as a link between man and the environment, wine as the perfect synthesis between Man and Nature, imperfection as exclusivity, naturalness as pride. In a series full of great quoted sentences — Pepe's time, Valentini's silence, Tiberio's struggle — Giannicola's living-product manifesto holds its own: wine, son of the place, of the season and of culture too.
From the Crecchio mother vineyard to the amphora of the Terreum wines, from the dragonflies to the lunar calendar, from Camillo's 1830 letter to the Wines for Life land-rescue project, Famiglia Di Carlo completes this Abruzzo map with its most philosophical chapter: a family that has been organic for as long as the word has existed in law, and that treats every bottle as an argument for a way of living on the land. The mother vineyard keeps watch. The dragonflies approve. And the synthesis — man and nature, in a glass — continues.