Calafata’s motto: In ground we trust: work the land with rigour, passion and craziness.
It’s a social service farm collective (Società Cooperativa Sociale) that helps exiles, recovering addicts, and people with mental health problems, by making wines from old abandoned vines on ancient limestone and clay soils. This takes place in the charming sea and mountain growing area around the charming town of Lucca, where Tuscany borders southern Liguria.
The winery was founded by “10 crazy friends,” explains Mauro Montanaro, none of which had any experience in farming or wine making. “We fell in love with the area, the old vines, the olive groves, but we also wanted to have a social cause. We were the first winery to be a Società Cooperativa Sociale in Tuscany, helping kids that were in exile, kids that had drug problems, mental issues, or wanted to begin a life again after being in jail. We’re now a big crazy group.”
Calafata has 9 hectares of vineyards, and 3 hectares of olive groves; an additional 8 hectares are dedicated to farming all kinds of vegetable delights, including the Slow Food awarded local red beans (Fagioli Rossi di Lucca) and some of the best Borlotti we’ve had (and we know benas!).
The Luccanese (from around Lucca) soils are ancient, composed mostly of limestone and clay; much different from the more recent soils of nearby Lunigiana. This gives the wines more tension and freshness, but also a balsamic quality. Lots of red fruits and flowers in the wines, with alcohol levels at 11-12.5%.
We’ve always been wine geeks, but we also like the idea of thinking beyond the bottle, to who made the wine, and what they stand for. We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome this new winery-cum-Cooperativa-Sociale into the PV family.
