Uccelliera

The Uccelliera winery is Andrea Cortonesi's kingdom, his creative workshop, his natural habitat, his corner of paradise and his family. For him, wine-growing is a choice of life, and a necessary and unavoidable consequence of the bond he has personally forged with nature. He is an atypical winegrower with an old-fashioned, pure and transparent style, the kind that no longer seems to exist in the prestigious Brunello wine-growing area, and whose work you can't help but trust. When you drink his wines you don't just experience a taste of great quality, but you allow a piece of the land to flow through you, you cherish the memory of it and you almost feel like you are there, losing sight of it among the rows of Castelnuovo dell'Abate, with the Abbey of Sant'Antimo towering on the horizon.

The Uccelliera estate is located right there in a small hamlet of Montalcino where Andrea owns a total of 9 hectares of vineyards. They are spread out over small plots here and there in this fertile portion of land, where the soil has different morphological compositions, rich in clay, stones and tuff. This is where the Sangiovese variety grows in a truly ideal habitat, where altitudes vary from 150 to 350 metres and the different microclimates that cradle the grapes throughout the ripening cycle allow them to be brought to the cellar in healthy, fragrant bunches, producing wines that are lively, rich and, above all, personal. Andrea Cortonesi's enological sensitivity emerges at every stage of winemaking, from the manual harvesting of the grapes, to the alcoholic fermentation triggered with the sole use of indigenous yeasts, right up to the ageing process, which takes place in different containers and for different periods of time based on the individual requirements. Even temperature control is left in the hands of nature, thanks to the construction of the cellar itself, which is structured on underground levels that allow a constant temperature to be maintained throughout the year.

At the Uccelliera winery, the Brunello di Montalcino has never been produced purely from a commercial point of view, nor have they ever complied with the business models of the market. Here, wine is made purely and simply, with absolute respect for nature. This is a necessary and irreplaceable commitment that Andrea explains as follows: "Being able to dine outdoors in the evening next to this olive grove, looking at the vines without worrying about interfering with the needs of the vineyard, is a precious thing".