Ancient Grains & the Adriatic Breeze

The story of Fiore Podere San Biagio begins not in a barrel room but in a grain field. In 1980, in the hills of Controguerra, Pietro and Antonietta Fiore made a decision that was radical for its time: they would farm ancient cereals — farro, solina, rosciola, and saragolla — using methods that respected the land, without waiting for the European Union to codify what organic agriculture meant. They were among the first in Italy to revive these abandoned grains, driven by a deep respect for tradition and a belief that food should be healthy, affordable, and honest. "Mangiare e bere sano è diritto di tutti" — eating and drinking healthily is everyone's right — a principle that would later define their wine as much as their wheat.

Over the decades, the family expanded their agricultural universe. In 1994, they renovated an 1800s farmhouse and opened an agriturismo, welcoming guests into the rhythms of their mixed farm. They planted olive groves and the first vineyards, but for years the grapes were sold or made into simple house wine. It was not until 2000 that a proper cellar was built and true wine production began — still modest, still local, still rooted in the same organic philosophy that had guided the grain fields. A small stone mill and olive press followed, completing the estate's ability to transform every product from field to table independently.

The transformation came with Jacopo Fiore. Born into this world of ancient grains and manual labour, he left for Bologna as a young man, then travelled to the Orient, seeking something he could not yet name. In 2014, he returned — barely thirty — and took the reins of the podere. With the mentorship of Valli Unite in Piedmont and Aurora in Marche, two of Italy's most respected agricultural cooperatives, Jacopo refined his cellar practices and crystallised his philosophy: spontaneous fermentation, no filtration, no clarification, and only the lightest possible touch of sulphur. He focused on the indigenous varieties that had always grown here — Montepulciano, Trebbiano, Passerina, Pecorino, Moscato, and Malvasia — and began to express them with a purity and elegance that belies the estate's humble origins. Today, the family works together: Pietro and Antonietta (both 65) remain active in the fields, Jacopo (35) directs the cellar and viticulture, and Ester (32) joins during the summer months. The agriturismo still welcomes guests, the stone mill still grinds ancient grains, and the cellar now produces wines that travel far beyond Abruzzo.

For Jacopo Fiore, the cellar is not a place to construct a wine but to protect the expression of the Controguerra terroir and the health of the organic grapes his family has grown. The guiding principle is one of radical simplicity: spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeasts, no selected additives, no temperature control, no fining, no filtration, and only the lightest possible touch of sulphur — and only at bottling, only when absolutely necessary. The goal is not to standardise the wine from vintage to vintage but to allow each harvest to speak with its own voice, reflecting the specific conditions of the Adriatic breeze, the Gran Sasso coolness, and the clayey-limestone soils of the family's plots.

All grapes are hand-harvested into small crates and brought to the cellar for gentle mechanical destemming and soft pressing. Reds undergo maceration periods ranging from one week to fifteen days, depending on the cuvée, in stainless steel and cement tanks — without temperature control, allowing the fermentation to proceed naturally and slowly. The Montepulciano d'Abruzzo DOC is aged for 18 months in exhausted wooden barrels (botti esauste) that impart no oak flavour, only gentle oxygenation, followed by six months in bottle before release. The Trebbiano is given a one-month maceration in unglazed terracotta amphora — a technique that extracts texture and phenolic complexity from the skins while preserving the variety's natural freshness, before nine months of ageing in the same neutral clay vessels.

The sparkling wines — Sgarzella and Tressette col Morto — are refermented in bottle using the estate's own Moscato must as the triggering sugar, with no added yeast, no added sugar, and no liqueur de dosage. This is the ancestral method in its purest form: the wine finishes its fermentation in the bottle, capturing natural CO₂ and creating a gentle, persistent mousse that is entirely a product of the vineyard's own chemistry. The Vino Cotto, a traditional cooked wine, is made by boiling part of the must in copper cauldrons before blending with fresh must and fermenting, then ageing in small wooden barrels — a preservation of an ancient Abruzzese technique that predates modern winemaking by centuries.

This approach places Fiore Podere San Biagio among the most authentic and self-sufficient natural wine estates in central Italy. There is no purchased fruit, no external inputs, no technological safety net. The family grows the grapes, presses the olives, mills the grains, and bottles the wine — all within the same 20-hectare property. The result is wine that is natural not by fashion but by family tradition, and that carries the unmistakable signature of Controguerra: mineral, saline, floral, and deeply honest.

Fiore Podere San Biagio is not merely a winery; it is a proof that a family who began farming ancient grains in 1980, before organic certification existed, can produce wine of genuine honesty and agricultural integrity four decades later. In an era when Abruzzo is often associated with large cooperatives and industrial scale, the Fiore family has demonstrated that the same Montepulciano can produce elegance, the same Trebbiano can produce amphora depth, and the same Moscato can produce ancestral-method bubbles — if the farming is patient, the cellar is humble, and the philosophy is rooted in the polycultural farm rather than the monocultural brand.

The legacy of Fiore Podere San Biagio is the legacy of agricultural self-sufficiency. The stone mill that grinds the ancient grains, the frantoio that presses the olives, the agriturismo that houses the guests, and the cellar that bottles the wine are not separate businesses; they are parts of a single organism tended by the same family. Pietro and Antonietta's hands are still in the vineyard; Jacopo's hands are in the cellar; Ester's hands join in the summer. The Sologne sheep of Jérôme Vigne, the mule Uma of Les Foulards Rouges, and the ancient grains of the Fiore family are all expressions of the same conviction: that the best wine comes from a farm that grows more than grapes.

The future of the estate is tied to the future of the Controguerra hills and the family that tends them. As the 1985 Montepulciano vines continue to deepen their roots in the clayey-limestone, as the amphora programme expands, and as the Vino Cotto tradition finds new audiences among natural wine drinkers seeking historical authenticity, Fiore Podere San Biagio remains what it has always been: a farmhouse with a stone mill, an olive press, a cellar, and a belief that the best wine is the one that needs no explanation beyond the table it is shared at. The story of Fiore Podere San Biagio is the story of a family who looked at abandoned grains and saw possibility — and who proved that the best bottle from Abruzzo is the one that carries the taste of farro, the scent of olive oil, and the honesty of the Adriatic breeze. Only a glass, a meal, and the patience to let the limestone speak.