A brand new cuvée from Antonio! After purchasing a small parcel of vines from his sister in the lower-lying flats of Cerreto Sannita, planted with highly obscure and regionally specific grape Camaiola, he has added this glossy, explosively fruity red wine to his repertoire.
At just 200m altitude, lower than any of his other vines, the plants hug a more clay-heavy soil and ripen at higher temperatures, producing something a little more brash and bold than the usual lean Gismondi style. Camaiola is one of those red grapes with inky, deep-coloured juice, so it may surprise you to find out this wine comes from a direct-press, with no influence from the skins whatsoever.
Beyond its vivid appearance the next thing to hit is the huge aroma brimming from the glass - it evokes powdery parma violets and rosewater. On the palate the sleekly-textured wine gives a sort of juicy cherry cola character, albeit with a herbaceous, strawberry liquorice lilt. A playful fruit-bomb of a wine, like nothing we have tasted before!
Treat this as you would a deeply-coloured rosato and serve it chilled.
We first became aware of Antonio and his wine after a heady visit to Massimo and Antonella of Partida Creus, two Italians resident in Tarragona, Spain, back in 2019. Some time before this, Antonio was running his own pizzaria just outside Barcelona, which they would frequent when in the area, becoming friends. At this point, Antonio’s father was at the helm of the family vineyards back home in Campania, farming biodynamically but making the wine a little more conventionally and selling to the local co-op. However, Antonio would make a little of his own natural wine on the side each year - after pouring it for Massimo and Antonella to get a bit of feedback, they saw the potential of the wine and suggested that he seriously consider making it as more than just a hobby-project to drink with friends. After working in restaurants most of his adult life, he was ready for a change and wanted to get out of the city, back to Italy and more importantly, out into nature. He returned to Cerreto Sannita in 2018 and took over from his retiring father, continuing the good vineyard work, but creating a new range of wines made under his own name with the strict philosophy of grapes and only grapes. It took us until late 2021 to track Antonio down and eventually taste for ourselves. It was worth the wait!
The vines sit around 350m above sea level and roughly 60km from the Tyrrhenian coastline, planted over rocky limestone and clay soils. This altitude and location has its own unique microclimate; towards Italy's south but much cooler and with good annual rainfall and a maritime influence bringing humid easterly winds from over the sea during the ripening season and fog in the cooler months. As such, Gismondi wines display a real delicacy and freshness over the more robust, structured style associated with this part of Italy. The 2 hectares of vines are planted mainly with Malvasia di Candia and Falanghina for the whites and a mixture of Sangiovese, Merlot & Freisa for the red. At another lower altitude site, Antonio works with friends who grow a little of the pink-skinned Trebbiano Rosa variety. He makes six different wines, mainly white, all of which have a breezy, weightless quality with lilting yellow citrus, floral aromas and an underlying saline imprint. The one red wine, Crucella, is a bright-fruited, but structured cherry bomb, a world away from the heavier Aglianico-based wines of the region. They are uplifting and vital.
