Cavalieri

The Cavalieri winery is the happy ending to a captivating fairy tale, which has been handed down from father to son, from Eugenio to Gabriele, and has reached the present day. A soft, underlying common theme links the past and the present of this Marche region winery: the determination to never lose sight of the principles of traditional, artisanal agriculture, at the expense of going against the tide and breaking away from the most established enological beliefs, in order to keep the reputation of the Marche region, Matelica and Verdicchio high.

The soul of the past is Eugenio Benedetti, better known to everyone as Gegè - after whom the winery's most famous wine is named - who was born in 1940 and whose grey, shaggy hair is the result of an invaluable wisdom matured over time through daily, patient work. It is a stubborn and determined know-how, ideologically distant from the Verdicchio sold at bargain prices in amphora-like bottles. A world away from a crystalline, transparent colour scheme and a dull, sterile taste, Gegè's Verdicchio di Matelica was already progressive at the time, going against the current and with a modern spirit in rigorously Burgundy bottles. His son Gabriele followed in the footsteps of his father Gegè, absorbed all his courageous and enterprising determination, and is now at the helm of the winery, both inspired by the previous generation and stimulated by a future that bears his name. The project that Gabriele has recently put into his head is to create fully and unquestionably Marche-style expressions of Pinot Noir, simply to keep up with his father!

The Cavalieri estate was inherited by Gegè and then left as a dowry to Gabriele. Here, where the land is rocky, steep and a bit rugged by nature, grapes of great character, lively personality and determination come to life. There are currently eight hectares of estate vineyards between the Podere Cavalieri and Podere Fornacione, which cover the foothills of the Verdiccio di Matelica denomination production area. Gegè usually repeated with frank and firm conviction that: "you mustn't be stingy in the cellar". Contrary to the inconsistent and vain agricultural shortcuts adopted by some producers in the long-term, the Cavalieri winery has always relied on the principles of organic farming. It has been using inter-row grassing for the past 20 years and has inaugurated new plantings, starting with a careful selection of the winery's best clones. The wines of Cavalieri are much more than simple drinks, but rather personal, affectionate, spontaneous and extrovert liquids, which are interpreted with faithful care, both in the past and today.