AMMÀNO

EASY MENFI

TERROIR

HAND MADE

TRADITION

AMMÀNO

VINO BIANCO

100% handmade from the grape’s picking to the bottling, Ammàno is a craft orange wine, made without using machineries but only hands and manual tools.

My goal is to understand how wine was like centuries ago, when there was no electricity nor technology in the vineyards, and to get closer to a more natural and traditional approach in winemaking.

Only grapes and hands: in a world dominated by industrial processes and homologation, human hands and creativity are the values we need to come back to.

THE SHORT STORY

Grape variety: Zibibbo grown in Vigna Torrenova
Soil: clay soil, rich in minerals, that provides full ripeness and structure to the grapes
Vineyard: planted in 2008, vertical shoot positioning, Guyot
Winemaking: manual destemming, skin contact for 7 days in steel tanks with manual punching downs
Alcoholic fermentation: spontaneous, with wild yeast
Malolactic fermentation: spontaneous
Refining: 5 months on fine lees, neutral medium sized Slavonian oak barrels
Average production: about 2.000 bottles/year

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The story

The first time I thought about making Ammàno I had no expectations whatsoever, and was prepared to throw everything in the sink, but I needed to prove myself that I was ready for a wine like this.
Stubbornness and recklessness pushed me on when nobody would trust me. When I told my mother that I would do such a wine she laughed. Then, as soon as I started to make it, she got scared.

I collected the tools that my father left me: the bowl where he fermented his first wines, which top lid is now broken after many years, so I did without a lid; a steel punch-down stick with holes and another stick equipped with iron chains, the first one to break the skins' cap and the second to stir the fine lees, and a toy wooden press that you can fill with only 20 kilos of grapes per cycle.

I stole a yellow pasta strainer from my mother's kitchen, and a couple of wash basins from her laundry room.

And so I managed to make a 100% craft wine, using no sophisticated machinery nor even electricity, but only humble tools. Whatever else needed, I would use my hands: the most perfect, flexible, versatile tool existing in nature.

The result is a wine that is free to evolve and to become more beautiful everyday, a wine that I don't want to control nor to shape, which goes wherever its nature takes him. And I do believe that this is the true meaning and the inner beauty of Ammàno: you may like it or not, it's him that will guide you, in the making as well as in the tasting. The only thing you can do is to trust him, and to follow him to a different level of wine consciousness.

WINEMAKING

I usually pick the Zibibbo mid-September, using small baskets where the clusters sit for a couple of days, in order to concentrate their extraordinary aromatic potential to the fullest.

During winemaking I use no machinery, nor electricity.
The grapes are destemmed and squeezed by hand and they ferment spontaneously with the skins for about one week in small steel tanks with no temperature control. The stirring of the cap is manual, as well as the soft pressing, which is performed with the help of one traditional wooden screw press. At the end of the fermentation, the wine is transferred to neutral medium sized Slavonian oak barrels, and the malolactic fermentation is completed without any enological additives.
The wine is not fined nor filtered; it is bottled through gravity directly from the barrels keeping part of the natural sediments, and is corked manually.

Ammàno is made only with grapes and hands.
It 's just a small tribute to those who, before me, have realized how extraordinary the Zibibbo is, and how wonderful is the wine that it gives us. Winemakers who did the job for 20 centuries with no pumps, no filters, no electricity. To them my gratitude for showing me the way.

TASTING NOTES

Ammàno is made by the sea: thanks to its archaic, essential winemaking process, it releases in the glass the typical saline freshness and the intense aromatic profile of the grapes grown on the Mediterranean islands.

Ammàno needs no hurry. Let the golden liquid flow gently in your glass, and let it breathe for all the time needed: the wine has been secluded in the bottle for many weeks, or even years, and he has lived together with the sediment that nurtures him, and that has also created a naturally reductive environment, protecting him from oxidation.
Its intense bouquet of orange blossoms and yellow broom plays with apricot notes and all the savory spectrum of the Mediterranean shrub: thyme, marjoram, oregano and a hint of incense that develops and amplifies as soon as the wine loosens up in your glass.
It is juicy and full on the palate, with a bright distinct saline finish.

How to match a wine like this? It goes with everything!
It's perfect with a romantic night, with a sunny afternoon in the springtime, with birthday parties and anniversaries and with all your moments of joy. It's a great wine for delicious food, but also a wine that you can enjoy for just the pleasure of wine: try any crazy combination you may think of, and Ammàno will make you smile.
I like to drink it with tuna-fish salted bottarga, sea shells, and creamy cheeses. Anchovies and marinated fish, sea urchins and everything that tastes of clean blue oceans, better if non cooked.
And sushi, of course.

SERVING TEMPERATURE: 54 - 58 °F
Pour Ammàno in wide Chardonnay glasses, at a fresh but not chilled temperature.
Please avoid freezers and blast chillers, as well as a prolonged time in your home refrigerator: this wine is not filtered nor fined, and any temperature below 40 °F will mortify its complex aromas and will cause tartaric precipitations.
For a more interesting tasting experience, you may keep the bottle in a vertical position during slow refrigeration, allowing the sediments to collect at the bottom: every glass of the wine will taste different from the other, and you will enjoy a wine that gets richer and richer until the end of the bottle.

EASY MENFI

TERROIR

HAND MADE

TRADITION

AMMÀNO

THE SHORT STORY

The story

WINEMAKING

TASTING NOTES

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