One of the nicest things about our winemakers is how incredibly welcoming they are. We organise for bunches of us to visit the vineyards from time to time, but every so often one of us will go rogue and find ourselves within arm’s reach of a winery we work with. Without fail, they open their doors and treat us with utter kindness.
So, when our PPC Specialist, Mihaela, was back home visiting her family in Romania, she realised she wasn’t far from our friends at La Sapata! A quick email from Fiona, our Purchasing & Logistics Manager, and Mihaela was set up for a visit! Thankfully she kept her ears to the ground and picked up wonderful information about the vineyard and the wines and tells us all about it! Check out her photos, too!
La Sapata is located in Romania in the heart of the Danube Delta, close to the border of Ukraine. It's a fantastic retreat spot where Roberto Pieroni is living in the middle of the grapes and enjoying every step of the winemaking process. There is also a fantastic place for tasting wines and seeing the small farm of animals.
While Roberto Pieroni is living in the vineyard, participating in all the hard work in every step of making their amazing wine, and creating a lot of handmade decorations related to wine, Roberto Di Filippo is handling the technical part, he's passionate about natural viticulture and likes to spend time with horses when it comes to cultivating the vineyards.
Together, they practice organic and biodynamic farming and like to invest in local resources and work with people from the local community.
The vineyard consists of 23 hectares of grapes and a winery of 300 square meters. All the process is made in-house, using a forty years old press, bottling, and labeling every wine.
La Sapata is a small vineyard and a place where new technologies and old traditions emerge with the final purpose of delivering their story through their amazing products.
Type of grapes:
Aligote is a rare grape in Romania and anywhere else outside its origin place. It is originally from Burgundy, France, where it was first discovered in the 18th century.
La Sapata is growing organically Aligote grapes in new and over 40 years old plots and after a 4-month gentle press and ferment in stainless steel tanks, you'll have an amazing wine to pair with appetizers, fish, or pork.
Another amazing grape you can find in their vineyard is Băbească Neagră which means Grandmother or old lady black grape. As you already find out, it is a red grape which is a late-ripening variety with Romanian-Moldovian origins. In Romania, Băbească Neagră is the second most widely planted grape variety. Also grown organically and naturally fermented by La Sapata.
Join us in celebrating the exceptional work of our Winemakers of the Month, Roberto Pieroni and Roberto Di Fillipo, by discovering their amazing wines at Wines Direct.
Cheers!
