The first time I heard of Angiolino Maule was when I read Taste and Power: The Wine World Wars. Jonathan Nossiter talks about him with affection, and speaks of a bottle of Pico, with its imperfections, as some kind of paradise lost.
I tried to find out more about him, and soon got the impression that he was an original character, though perhaps a bit blinkered in his stubborn search for the “naturalness” of wine.
When I arrive at the estate early in the morning, he seems surprised to see me, but takes me straight into the winery to contemplate in silence the reason for my visit. Then he decides to take me into the house, where he introduces me to his wife Rosamaria and offers me a coffee. He immediately begins to tell me his story, of when as a pizza chef he dreamed of having his own winery. In 1984 he bought this plot of land in the Sorio Gambellara hills in the province of Vicenza, where he built the house and winery, and 1988 saw the first bottles of “Sassaia”, from Garganega grapes.
He immediately came up against a production reality that bore little resemblance to his dream – back then people weren’t interested in making good wine, but only in producing truckloads of grapes at any cost. There was excessive intervention in the rows, overuse of fertilizers, and too much interference during production.
And so he struck out on his own path, with the help of the Friulian producer Josko Gravner, and soon became a benchmark for “natural” growers everywhere.
His watchwords are no herbicides, pesticides or chemical fertilizers, limited use of copper and sulphur, vineyard grassing, grapes harvested by hand, spontaneous fermentation, no micro-oxygenation, and limited use of sulphites, with a view to doing away with them completely.
Understandably, these stances have caused controversy, conflict and divisions between different schools of thought. But today, natural wine has earned its spurs, and the VinNatur association is proof of the fact.
As we speak, I take another look at Angiolino and realise that he’s not at all how I imagined him. He’s not a fundamentalist at all; he’s an experimenter. Born in different circumstances, he might have become a university professor. He asks questions and looks for the answers in his vineyard.
As he shows me round the estate, one after the other we bump into his sons, Francesco, Alessandro and Tommaso. They all work with him, and seem happy here. He’s clearly glad to have them close at hand.
He talks more about the land and the care he dedicates to it, than about his wine. He almost seems to be of this volcanic soil himself.
They invite me to lunch, and I pretend to resist, but then of course accept. The atmosphere created by this close-knit family is wonderful, and somewhat 1950s (where else do people all still have lunch together?). The “Pico” warms me and stirs my soul. I’m sure that Angiolino made the right choice 30 years ago.
Translation by Simon Tanner
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