Climb to the windswept peak of the Monti Martani above Spoleto and you reach Collecapretta, the "hill of the goats," where the Mattioli family has farmed since the medieval era and where wine is still made as if the twentieth century never intervened.
Backstory
The Mattioli family has lived in the tiny Umbrian hamlet of Terzo la Pieve for generations, in a borgo that records trace back to the 1100s. Today the estate is run by Vittorio Mattioli, his wife Anna, and their daughter Annalisa, who has gradually taken the lead in the cellar while three generations of the family continue to live and work together on the hill.
The Region
Collecapretta sits at roughly 500 meters of elevation on a peak of the Monti Martani, just outside Spoleto in Umbria. The position is high, cool, and exposed, with the Apennines and Gran Sasso visible across the valley.
Vineyards and Farming
The farm covers about 8 hectares in total. Only around 4 hectares are planted to indigenous old vines, with another 2 hectares of olive trees and 2 hectares of farro and other ancient grains. Soils are a mix of iron-rich clay with outcrops of tufo and travertine limestone. Farming is entirely natural, with no herbicides or pesticides, and the family fertilizes only with compost made from their own animals. Annalisa has fallen in love with Trebbiano Spoletino, the white grape native to the Spoleto hills.
Winemaking
Fermentations are spontaneous, with no temperature control and no added yeast. The family works in open-top cement containers and glass-lined cement or resin vats, and racks and bottles in synchrony with the waning lunar cycle, relying on the cold of winter to clarify the wines naturally. No sulfur is added at any point.
The Wines
Production is tiny, around 8,000 bottles in a good year, yet the family vinifies many different cuvees to capture each grape and parcel. The range spans whites built on Trebbiano Spoletino and Malvasia, a rosato, and reds such as Lautizio (Ciliegiolo) and the Le Cese bottlings.
