mariotti
“As owner Mirco likes to say “Beach vines! Beach wines!””
Domaine Overview
Year Founded: 1976
Winemaker: Mirco Mariotti
Location: Emilia-Romagna, Northeast Italy
Size: 5 hectares
Grapes:
Trebbiano Romagnolo, Fortana, Malvasia di Candia [non aromatic]
Farming: Practicing Organic
Production: About 1,600 bottles/year
The unique Bosco Eliceo has vines growing on the beach, and a long tradition of making frizzante metodo ancestrale wines with extremely old vines, some reaching more than 100 years old.
I first met Mirco Mariotti over ten years ago in the castle-and-moat city of Ferrara, where I was then living. The city is located in the eastern, Romagna, part of Emilia-Romagna; an area much less well-known than Emilian part. The part of Romagna where Mariotti is from is a laid back beach area, where locals eat grilled flat-bread sandwiches called piadina romagnola, slosh back the frothy frizzante, and play some beach tennis and local card games. In fact, Mariotti’s wines are named after local card games. Sèt e Mèz is kinda like Blackjack, and the name of his sparkling light rosso made from the rare red variety called Fortana.
His vines are in Fortana’s cru growing area of Bosco Eliceo, just 300 meters from the Adriatic sea. Since the vines are grown in sand, they are non-grafted and on their own native rootstock (It. piede franco). What’s more, he uses the process of propaggine, or Layering (of shoots), in a process where the instead of planting new vines, shoots are bent do underneath the soil and come out to form a new vine. What results is a gnarly web of vines over 100 years old that all all interconnected, drawing on an aquifer two meters deep.
These are wines with loads of character, with a decisive salty and savoury married to unripe fruit. If that’s your style, kick off the sandals, light up the grill, and deal the cards. This is the read deal framer fizz.
