At 600 meters above Lake Trasimeno, on a hilltop in Umbria where the Nofrini family has farmed for generations, a small group of people are making wine in a way that feels entirely outside the current moment: no technique borrowed from fashion, no concession to trends, no separation between the land, the people, and what ends up in the bottle. Programma Agricolo Dinamo is one of the most quietly compelling natural wine projects in central Italy.
Backstory
The Nofrini family--Danilo, his daughter Rachele, and his son Simone--have grown grapes on this hilltop property outside Magione in the province of Perugia for more than 40 years. For most of that time, the grapes were sold locally, as was common in the region. The shift toward estate wine came when the family partnered with Danilo Marcucci, a key figure in Italy's natural wine movement who had spent more than four decades working with vines. Marcucci, seeking to return to the kind of wine he had made as a child with his grandfather, found in the Nofrinis the land, the history, and the shared sensibility to do it properly. Together they built their own cantina and bottling facility, and the Programma Agricolo Dinamo was launched.
The Region
Lake Trasimeno is the largest lake in central Italy, surrounded by gentle hills and olive groves. The vineyards of Magione sit at the lake's eastern edge, elevated well above the valley floor on ancient soils rich in clay and limestone. The elevation brings cool nights and strong diurnal temperature swings that preserve natural acidity in the grapes--essential for the kind of bright, energetic wines the Nofrinis and Marcucci aim to produce. The region's winemaking traditions stretch back to pre-Roman times, and local varieties like Gamay del Trasimeno (a genetic relative of Gamay Noir) and Sangiovese have adapted over centuries to these precise conditions.
Vineyards and Farming
The estate covers 5 hectares of organically farmed vines managed with minimal intervention. The vineyards are described by the producers as having an almost wild appearance--an environment in balance, where the ecosystem manages itself and human interference is kept to what is strictly necessary. Grape varieties include Gamay del Trasimeno, Sangiovese, and several local whites. The third generation of the Nofrini family now participates in seasonal work, alongside neighbors who help during harvest.
Winemaking
Fermentations are spontaneous, driven entirely by indigenous yeasts. The approach in the cellar follows the principle that the winemaker's role is to follow what nature has already established during the growing season--not to correct, adjust, or impose. Nothing is added, nothing is removed. The resulting wines are honest expressions of a particular hillside and a particular year, without the smoothing or standardization that additive winemaking provides.
The Wines
The Nucleo range forms the core of the estate's production. Nucleo 1 Rosso blends Gamay del Trasimeno and Sangiovese into a wine of vivid fruit and energetic structure. Nucleo 2 offers a different expression of the same varieties at a different stage of vinification. The Umbria Bianco explores local white varieties with the same hands-off approach. All wines are low-production, bottled in small lots, and reflect the Trasimeno hillside's capacity for producing genuinely original, deeply local natural wine.
