The Democrat: A Historian, Two Friends & the Rebellion of Making Calabria Light
Calabria's wine identity was written for it: powerful, alcoholic, sun-stunned, built for blending and better suited to a stereotype than a table. In 2006, three childhood friends from the mountain town of San Marco Argentano decided to contest it. They had no formal training, no wealth, no resources — "just big dreams and bold ambitions," as Dino Briglio puts it. What they had was a historian's instinct for evidence and a farmer's memory: evidence that at the turn of the twentieth century their corner of Cosenza was as viticulturally important as any celebrated zone in Italy, and memory of how their own families and neighbors actually made and drank wine — light, fresh, alive. From a one-hectare Mantonico vineyard at 650 metres that an old farmer had abandoned as too steep and too windy, and from Magliocco vines up to a century old growing on their own roots, L'Acino set out to prove two things at once: that high-quality wine could come from an undervalued place, and that accessibility is not a compromise but a democratic act.
Origin — The Historian's Wager
Dino Briglio is a historian by training — and, as he describes himself, a vignaiolo by choice, the son and grandson of farmers. In 2006 he and two childhood friends from San Marco Argentano — Antonello Canonico and Emilio Di Cianni — founded L'Acino, "the grape berry," with nothing but conviction. The founding impulse was a challenge, and Briglio states it precisely: "We wanted to prove that high-quality wine could be made in an undervalued place, out of the spotlight, but rich in agricultural tradition and culture."
The evidence was already under their feet. At the turn of the twentieth century, viticulture around San Marco Argentano was as important and widespread as in far more celebrated zones — in their village, Briglio notes, almost every farmer growing fruit, olives and vegetables kept a small vineyard to make wine for his own table, vines that routinely lived forty to ninety years and were never grafted onto American rootstocks. The first purchase was a parable of the whole project: a one-hectare vineyard of Mantonico at 650 metres, on a steep, windswept slope at the border of the Pollino National Park, bought from an old farmer who had deemed the land too hard to work. A year later came roughly three more hectares of Magliocco nearby. The first vintage, 2007, produced the two wines that became the estate's most identity-defining labels: "Tocco Magliocco" and "Mantonicoz."
With early guidance from Luigi De Conciliis, the renowned Cilento winemaker, the trio imagined a different kind of Calabrian wine — light, fresh, elegant, honest — and converted the vineyards to organic farming from the start, along with biodynamic practice. The friends have since amicably moved on, and Dino has steered L'Acino alone since 2016, growing the estate to ten hectares owned and four or five more rented, mostly old vines, at some 50,000 bottles a year — wines that now ship across Italy, Europe, Asia and the United States and pour at Raw Wine in London.
The Place — A Grand Cru Nobody Recognized
L'Acino's vineyards climb from about 520 to 650 metres on the edge of the Pollino — many of them exposed north, catching little of the fierce afternoon sun. The soils are sandy, iron-rich, layered over sandstone or clay; the air is kept moving by constant mountain breezes. The result is a fingerprint: large day–night temperature swings, slow ripening, and wines lighter and more elegant than anyone expects from Calabria. Briglio's judgment on the flagship site is famous: "In any other place, this would be considered a grand cru site."
Own-Rooted Survivors
The oldest vines — some dating to the 1920s, '30s and '40s — grow on their own roots, ungrafted, because the sandy soils that defeated phylloxera never forced Calabrian growers onto American rootstocks. Among them are Mantonico, an ancient white that risked being forgotten and is being recovered by growers like Dino; Magliocco Canino and Dolce; Greco Bianco; Guarnaccia Bianca and Nera — the latter two brought from Spain in the 1500s under the Kingdom of Aragon; Pecorello, Malvasia and Guardavalle. Replanting is done from massal selection, and much of it piede franco — own-rooted, as the old vines grew.
Organic from the First Vintage
Conversion to organic farming began with the first wines, alongside biodynamic practice — plowing and natural treatments instead of chemical herbicides and pesticides, and cellar work aimed at preserving what the vineyard achieved. No certification theater: the methods are the family's and neighbors' traditional ways, formalized. "For us, producing natural wines has never been dictated by a passing trend," Briglio says. "We only work by traditional ways, the way of our families and neighbors."
Altitude as an Argument
The north-facing, high-altitude sites are the estate's core claim: at 650 metres with constant mountain wind and cool nights, the grapes ripen slowly toward an optimal balance of fruit, acidity and mature tannins — the opposite of the flatland, high-alcohol Calabria of reputation. It is a terroir argument made against the stereotype: the same sun that stuns lowland vineyards is filtered, at altitude, into freshness.
Masseria Perugini
The winery operates at Masseria Perugini, a working agricultural estate with an acclaimed restaurant, charming grounds and overnight agriturismo rooms — visitors greeted by friendly dogs and a feisty kitten, the air thick with fermenting grapes. The table matters here as much as the cellar: this is an estate built around wine as hospitality, not wine as trophy — the democrat's estate, by design.
Winemaking — Non-Intervention as Tradition
The cellar rules are few and absolute: indigenous yeasts only, spontaneous fermentation with no temperature control, no additions and no subtractions — nothing added, nothing taken away, except a small amount of sulfur at bottling. Reds ferment and age mostly in stainless steel, with occasional departures — Giramondo, the Malvasia, ages in mulberry barrels, an old Calabrian wood that leaves almost no trace. Whites are direct-pressed or see brief skin contact. Everything is unfined, unfiltered, vegan-friendly. Vinifications aim at one thing: the preservation of the grape and the work done in the field — what Briglio calls a healthy, non-interventionist viticulture and oenology.
But the deeper philosophy is the mission. L'Acino set out to make wines of drinkability — fresh, light, elegant — in deliberate revolt against the powerful, high-alcohol, out-of-step wines that had made Calabria invisible on the modern Italian wine map. The wines carry playful, self-aware names — "Don't Panic It's Calabria," "Sputnik 2," "Il Raglio dell'Asino" (The Donkey's Bray), "Ceci n'est pas un Magliocco" — a label program that refuses reverence and chooses joy. And Briglio states the democratic thesis plainly: "We believe strongly in the accessibility of the product — and it's not just a matter of price, it's a democratic fact. Our goal is to make a product that makes people feel good."
The stance has made L'Acino a leader of Calabria's natural wine movement beyond its own bottles. Alongside producers like Terre del Gufo, the estate is championed by small importers and natural-wine fairs like Raw Wine; its wines appear on lists that prize wines that are not just vibrantly alive, but beautifully respectful of their terroirs and grapes. From a standing start in 2006 — when few in the province of Cosenza bottled wine at all — that is the rebellion, measured: a whole generation of Calabrian wine drinkers who now expect it light.
The Wines — Serious Wine, Unserious Names
A portfolio that mixes identity-defining estate classics with whimsical single-variety bottles — all native, all wild-fermented, all unfined and unfiltered. Chora Bianco and Chora Rosso come from the younger vines; the named crus from vines up to a century old.
Tocco Magliocco
100% Magliocco — Calabria IGTThe estate's identity-defining red, from the first vintage in 2007 — 100% Magliocco from a three-hectare vineyard planted in 1922 on the Pollino at 600 metres, taken over in 2006 from the old farmer who had worked it alone. Fermented and aged in stainless steel, unfiltered: black cherry up front with evident acidity and fine tannins — the lighter, more elegant Magliocco that is L'Acino's thesis in bottle. The wine that proves a "minor" Calabrian variety from a near-century-old site can stand on its own name — and, in a nice democratic twist, its cult following has made the library vintages genuine collector bottles.
Mantonicoz
100% Mantonico — Calabria IGT (also as Orange)The identity-defining white, from the very first hectare — the abandoned Mantonico vineyard at 650 metres that started everything. Mantonico is an ancient variety that risked being forgotten and is being recovered through growers like Dino; the wine is pure, fresh, fleshy with a dry finish, from sandy hillside soils. A macerated "Orange" version carries the same recovery into the skin-contact register. The bottle that repaid a tired old farmer's faith that the land was worth working after all.
Giramondo
100% Malvasia — Calabria IGT"Globetrotter" — Malvasia with 24 hours of skin contact, aged in mulberry barrels: dry, rich in floral aromas, lively, with a refreshing bitter aftertaste. Featured in the New York Times' Best Wines of 2024 — the wine that carried a Cosenza estate onto the world's most-read list. The mulberry wood is the quiet detail: an old Calabrian vessel that shapes without flavoring, the non-interventionist's compromise with élevage.
Chora Bianco & Chora Rosso
Young-vine blends — Calabria IGTThe democratic tier, named for Chora — the ancient Greek name of San Marco Argentano. Bianco: Mantonico, Guarnaccia and Pecorello — fleshy yet fresh, pure fruit and flowers from the younger vines on sandy hillsides. Rosso: Magliocco and Guarnaccia Nera — bright, easy, sluggable: juicy soft tannins balanced by zesty acidity and mouthwatering minerality. The wines most likely to be opened on a Tuesday, and — by Briglio's own creed — the most important bottles in the cellar.
Sputnik 2, Il Raglio dell'Asino & Friends
The single-variety experiments — Calabria IGTThe estate's playful fringe, and it is dead serious about being playful: "Sputnik 2" — 100% Magliocco Canino, a rare variety of central Calabria, bigger but still dry and vibrant, dark berry fruit and wild herbs, "more lively than Sangiovese or Nebbiolo"; "Il Raglio dell'Asino" (The Donkey's Bray) — Greco Bianco from 15-year-old vines on sandy volcanic soils, hand-harvested, direct-pressed, spontaneously fermented in steel, tropical and balanced; the old-vine "G" — Guarnaccia Bianca of tremendous acidity, golden with peach and honey; "Don't Panic It's Calabria" in liter bottles. Labels that laugh, wine that doesn't.
Legacy — The Table, Not the Pedestal
L'Acino's first legacy is stylistic, and it traveled farther than the estate. When the three friends began in 2006, Calabrian wine — traditionally powerful, high in alcohol, out of step with contemporary taste and almost invisible on the modern Italian wine map — had one register. L'Acino proved, from a standing start and with no training, that the same sun could make light, fresh, elegant wine: altitude, north exposure, sandy iron-rich soils and wind as the instruments. A decade and a half later, "drinkable Calabria" is a category with importers, fairs and followers — and L'Acino is one of its leaders, a name sommeliers reach for when they want the south without the weight.
The second legacy is the recovery of varieties and vines that had no one else. The 1922 Magliocco vineyard, the abandoned 650-metre Mantonico parcel, own-rooted vines of forty to ninety years on soils that never knew phylloxera, massal selections replanted piede franco: L'Acino is less an estate than a refuge — Guarnaccia, Pecorello, Guardavalle, Mantonico all living under its roof. When those vines were threatened, a historian understood what was actually being lost: not grapes, but evidence.
The third legacy is democratic, and it is stated in pricing. Briglio's creed — accessibility not as compromise but as a democratic fact, the goal being a product that makes people feel good — runs against every collector economy in modern wine. The liter bottles, the entry Chora tier carrying the ancient Greek name, the restaurant-and-agriturismo home at Masseria Perugini: the estate is built so the wine ends up on tables, not pedestals. A NYT Best Wine of 2024 that is meant to be drunk with Tuesday pasta is the whole philosophy, proven.
That is the lesson of L'Acino for this series: the custodians held the line; the revivalists restarted the method; the revolutionaries changed the map; the democrats changed who gets to sit at it. Most estates in these pages defend rarity. L'Acino asks the older question — who is the wine for? — and answers like a farmer's grandson: for everyone at the table. Pour it light, pour it young, pour it again.