Le Coste Litrozzo Rosso 2023

Le Coste di Gradoli was founded in 2004 by Gianmarco Antonuzzi and Clémentine Bouveron. Gianmarco grew up spending summers in Gradoli, the small hilltop village on the northwestern shore of Lake Bolsena where the estate is based. After training as a sommelier, he spent years working in France with some of that country's most influential natural wine producers, including Bruno Schueller in Alsace, Didier Barral in the Languedoc, Jean-Paul Thévenet in Beaujolais, and Philippe Pacalet in Burgundy. It was in Alsace that he met Clémentine Bouveron, a scientifically trained agronomist who had been working in French vineyards. They married and returned together to Gradoli, where they bought three hectares of abandoned land and started building Le Coste from nothing.

Two decades later, the estate covers approximately 14 hectares, including vineyards, olive groves, chestnut trees, oak woodland, orchards, and areas of spontaneous wild herbs — a genuine polyculture that supports biodiversity throughout the property. The vineyard density in many parcels reaches up to 10,000 vines per hectare, and many blocks contain ungrafted vines and massale selections that preserve genetic material from the local viticultural heritage. All work is done by hand.

Although Le Coste operates according to biodynamic principles, it is not Demeter certified — and in practice, the amounts of copper and sulfur used, when used at all, fall well below what biodynamic certification would permit. In the cellar, which occupies an ancient building in Gradoli's historic center, every wine is fermented spontaneously with indigenous yeasts. No fining, no filtration, no additions of any kind — including sulfites — are used. The Litrozzo line, bottled in one-liter format, represents the everyday expression of this philosophy: direct, joyful, and built for drinking.

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Lake Bolsena sits in the northernmost corner of Lazio, roughly 90 miles north of Rome, and holds the distinction of being the largest volcanic lake in Europe. The lake was formed when an ancient Etruscan-era volcanic crater collapsed, and the surrounding landscape still reflects this geological origin: the soils are predominantly tuff, volcanic ash, and iron-rich mineral deposits that drain well and give the wines grown here a distinctive stony, saline character.

The area around Lake Bolsena has been farmed continuously since Etruscan times, long before the Romans arrived. The town of Gradoli, where Le Coste is based, sits on the northwestern shore of the lake at roughly 1,600 feet altitude, on slopes that face the water and benefit from the lake's moderating influence on temperature. The broader zone — sometimes called Alta Tuscia — spans the border between Lazio and Umbria and is home to a diverse range of indigenous grape varieties, many of them found nowhere else.

The climate here falls between Mediterranean and continental. Winters are cold and wet, summers are warm but not extreme, and the lake tempers temperature swings throughout the growing season. The altitude of the vineyards around Gradoli and Montefiascone, typically between 1,300 and 1,800 feet, gives the wines their freshness and natural acidity, which is a defining quality of the best wines made in this zone.

Montefiascone, where the grapes for the Litrozzo Rosso are grown, is perhaps best known historically for its Est! Est!! Est!!! white wine, one of Italy's oldest denominations. But the volcanic plateau on which Montefiascone sits, overlooking the southern shore of Lake Bolsena, also produces red wines of genuine freshness and mineral character, shaped by the same iron-rich volcanic tuff that defines the whole lake basin.