Controcorrente is the work of Enrico Ciroi, a one-man-band with a background working for both the Friulian winery Lis Neris and Prosciutto di San Daniele producer, Dall’Ava, before returning to his hometown of Udine to open his own restaurant and deli. It was around this time that he got the bug for natural wine, and, as the story goes, whilst mulling over a negroni one afternoon, he came to consider the fact that vermouth, despite being made from wine, rarely speaks much of the provenance of its base ingredient. Enrico came to consider the idea of expanding on the character of some of the wines he had enjoyed the most and using them as a starting point to inspire the qualities of a vermouth, rather than simply as a means to an end. One producer that Enrico had really come to admire was Daniele Piccinin, a contemporary Venetian grower and leading exponent of organic farming and additivefree winemaking in the region. After striking up a friendship over a few bottles of wine and sharing his idea, Daniele was more than happy to join forces, and so it came to be that Controcorrente vermouths would be made with his wines as their base ingredient.