Voltumna exists thanks to Valeria and Marzio who, after having worked for years in an agricultural land consisting of 2.5 hectares of vineyards and 2.5 hectares of olive groves, found themselves faced with the forced cessation of the company they worked for.
So: loss of job, abandonment of the lands they had cultivated up to that point, end of a special and specific agricultural experience. Valeria and Marzio, passionate winemakers, preferred to take a risk by opening the Voltumna company and renting the agricultural land rather than moving away and giving up the strong bond that had formed between them and the land on which they had stood for 10 years now. They were credited with having introduced the biodynamic method within the company, as well as the intention of producing wines with an express "natural" logic. Since 2012 we have made many mistakes, many steps forward and some backwards. We have had splendid years and other very difficult ones; trembled due to the cold and difficult economic situations; sweaty in the heat, working, drinking, dancing, celebrating and rejoicing . We have never backed down or regretted the choices we made because the pleasure of working the land in certain conditions, of seeing it flourish - it, the plants and everything else that moves on it - is a great honor in which we participate. And then we have fun making our wines: we experiment with new solutions, we adapt like reeds in the wind to climatic variations, hoping that a little of our fun finds its way into the bottle. We always hope that each wine is unique, strongly characterized, recognisable, and that it is clear that it comes from a specific place and that it is the way it is thanks to our minds and our hands .
Valeria and Marzio, VoltumnaWe are in Dicomano (Florence), right under the Apennines, where we find vineyards that reach up to 300 metres: many are surrounded by woods, which allows us to ease the summer heat and keep biodiversity high. We meet Marzio , agronomist and oenologist director, and his partner Valeria : the heroes of Voltumna . The agricultural company exists thanks to them who in 2012 faced the cessation of the activity of the agricultural land for which they worked, deciding to take a risk by renting it rather than moving away from the land they had been cultivating for 10 years. They were credited with having introduced natural winemaking (with native yeasts and with attention not to introducing artificial elements into the wine). The varieties that Valeria and Marzio grow are sangiovese, pinot noir and pinot grigio. The inspiration for the name of the winery comes from the ancient Etruscans: Voltumna is the ancestor of the Roman goddess Fortuna . The one that rewards courageous people, the one that rewarded Valeria and Marzio , passionate winemakers. In the March Wine Boxes we selected the Zeno and Silene wines, and we asked Valeria and Marzio to tell us about them.
Zeno wine was born as a fusion of two grape varieties: Sangiovese and Pinot Noir. The idea for this wine came to us because at the time we did not have a white wine, something that could tempt the palate even in the hot summer period. Diluting a Sangiovese wine with a percentage of Pinot Noir seemed like the best solution to us. In truth, initially, apart from attracting harsh criticism from those who considered mixing the two vines a violation, we didn't succeed much in the undertaking. Two first wines, put together in the narrow space of a bottle, continually mixed and melted, sometimes they blended, sometimes they punched each other. They loved and hated each other . We tried a new solution: why not introduce them to budding, at the moment of fermentation, of the great evolutionary transformations, in the hardest, gaseous, unstable, rebellious moments? Here he is, our Zeno! The result of a common fermentation between a beautifully ripe, fragrant, enveloping Pinot Noir and a more angular, fresh Sangiovese with nice acidity. Today we are no longer criticized for our daring, no one thinks that Zeno is an abuse, rather something that is good to have. Coming from the term Zen or Life, Zeno is that which is living .
Silene is the rock version of our pinot noirs. The vineyard, nestled in the forest of white essences, acacia flowers, elderberry and caraway, shows all its whiteness, its finesse and elegance. The name Silene comes from the Silene Alba plant which has a white calyx-shaped flower so ephemeral that it expresses enormous lightness. The bitterness is that of Artemisia Absintium, a plant that abounds in our fields. We tried to enclose these elements in a bottle, trying to use only the flower wine of this pinot noir with short macerations, without going into extraction. We tried to trap, through macerations and refinements in a material considered inert, steel, the sensations that the vine inspired in those places. Yet it is something different, something that we still struggle to understand today. The more direct, simpler wine some might say. The different in the Voltumna wine family, someone else. We prefer this definition: it is a film with a bitter ending , it leaves us stunned, we who are used to happy resolutions were expecting another ending, yet just like a film with a bitter ending it forces us to think, to go back to it countless times. times .