Few producers have done more to drag Emilia's fizzy traditions into the natural wine conversation than Camillo Donati. Working the family land his grandfather Orlando founded in 1930, he makes ancestral-method sparklers that are dry, cloudy and gloriously alive.
Backstory
The estate began in the Arola area of Parma province under Orlando Donati. Camillo, the third generation, took over an acre of vineyard after his father's death in 1992 and released his first labels in 1997. He has carried the family's traditions forward ever since.
The Region
The vines sit in the hills of Sant'Andrea di Barbiano, near Felino in the Parma province of Emilia-Romagna, about 20 km from Parma at roughly 250 meters of elevation with eastern exposure.
Vineyards & Farming
Donati farms around 11 to 12 hectares organically and biodynamically. The vines, trained to guyot, are planted to Lambrusco, Malvasia aromatica di Candia, Barbera, Trebbiano and Sauvignon. Vineyard work is done by hand in respect of the plant and the region's peasant traditions.
Winemaking
Everything is vinified naturally with the indigenous yeasts present on the grapes, using a pied de cuve to start fermentation. The wines refement in bottle by the ancestral method, and they are neither fined nor filtered, leaving them with their lees and a fine, persistent sparkle.
The Wines
Donati is best known for taking grapes usually made still and bottling them as sparkling: Malvasia, Lambrusco, Barbera and Bonarda all emerge dry, rustic and complex. They are food wines in the truest Emilian sense, built for the table rather than the spec sheet.
