VIGNETI VUMBACA | Showcasing some of Italy’s highest quality winemakers
Italy is uniquely blessed with an incredibly large number of native wine grapes and a just as amazing wealth of different terroirs in which these grapes can express themselves in absolutely unique way. Fomoowa is created with the intent of showcasing the work of some of the country’s best wine estates, big and small, that, through their passion and hard work help to safeguard and promote both the quality of rare native grape varieties that have called Italy home for millennia, as well as that of international grape varieties that express the uniqueness of specific Italian terroirs with their wines.
We are showcasing some of Italy’s highest quality winemakers devoted to unique grape varieties and/or terroirs and characterized by small volume wine productions. From The Veneto in the North to Sicily in the South, from Freisa to Fleurtai to Dorona to Gaglioppo to Damaschino to Zibibbo and much more, together, will lead you in the discovery of some of the world’s most unique wines and the people who make them like:
VIGNETI VUMBACA
Christian Vumbaca who left his job as a lawyer in Rome in 2019 to grow wine in his native Calabria, near the ancient town of Cirò. The domain has 13 hectares of which 6 Ha has cultivated a vineyard. The work in the vineyards is sacred to Christian. Because good wine can only come from excellent grapes. He follows the natural growth cycle in the vineyards very closely. The work is done manually, naturally, without the use of chemicals. Christian's wines are the translation of his hard work in the vineyards. Christian is attentive to the care of its vineyards following the cultivation traditions and the restoration of the old vineyards cultivated in Alberello (hence the choice of the company logo) and focusing on native Gaglioppo and Greco Bianco vines, with an eye also to Magliocco and Pecorello.
The town of Ciro is famous for the production of Calabria's most important wine of the same name. The ancient Greeks started producing this wine known as Crimissa, the predecessor of Cirò wine nearly 3000 years ago and it was also offered to victors of the ancient Olympics. Cirò, Calabria is located in the very south of the Italian peninsula, gently jetting out east into the Ionian Sea. Sea breezes flank both sides of Cirò, while to its back is the national park of Sila, where dense forests reach over 6,000 feet in altitude. Cirò’s vineyards are specifically located along long stretches of coastline and stand atop the surrounding soft sloped hills reaching a few hundred feet high. Cirò is historically famous for its powerful reds, nicknamed the “Barolo of Calabria.”
Christian is also member of “The Cirò Boys”, a larger collective of producers who are dedicated to organic viticulture and minimal-intervention winemaking. They represent and respect their territory’s identity by making artisanal wines, as their families always have, with native grape varieties, especially with the Gaglioppo grape. They have inspired a whole new generation of Calabrian winemakers and uplifted Calabria into new heights of wine recognition. This collective movement is called “The Cirò Revolution” and this surge of winemakers has caught the media’s attention in Italy and beyond: La Repubblica (a renowned Italian newspaper), VICE Italia, Walter Speller of Jancis Robinson. Note: some of the information are from an article from Marco Salerno.
