MICHELE BIANCARDI

"A farm in the Apulian countryside, not far from the sea. The old doors with the old bolts are those of my great-grandparents: they still work. Beyond the door, the stone arches smell of must: the grapes are back and, after a century, they return to press the wine press. A dry stone wall separates the cellar from the vineyard and envelops the citrus garden; on the pines, the fine owls control the master pruners, while the fox waits for the grapes to ripen. My cellar is not large, but there is enough space for a dream: to produce a great wine. There are four vines I have chosen for my cellar: Nero di Troia,  Fiano, Primitivo and Minutolo. They are those of tradition, and the wines I get are sapid and full-bodied. The harvest begins towards the end of August with Primitivo and ends in late October with the Nero di Troia : three months of expectations, hopes, but the sun, the wind that comes from the sea are never lacking. Here, in Daunia, wine has always been made and my cellar is just one of many testimonies of a glorious past on the territory. The Cerignola red has already entered the history of wine: Mario Soldati talked about it, Luigi Veronelli praised it. And I hope you still talk about it as one of the best in Puglia. I whitened the walls, cleaned the stone arches and rebuilt the roof: now the cellar is ready to welcome the must. The technology is reduced to a minimum, and thanks to the solar panels, the farm produces more oxygen than it consumes. I use wood barrels in moderation and steel to cool when the summer gets too hot. All the necessary work, from cultivation to bottling, takes place inside the farm, between these ancient walls returned to their original function."

- Michele Biancardi

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Sixty thousand hectares of extension: Cerignola is one of the cities of Italy with the largest countryside. It is here, between history and traditions, that agriculture becomes passion. Of Cerignola is the table olive, perhaps inherited from the Spaniards, who on 28 April 1503 with Consalvo da Cordova defeated the French and conquered the South until 1861. It is here that the floor of the pits, the ancient grain store, looms over the city . The territory also hosts many precious winemakers' realities: family legacies, such as Biancardi, which blend the flavors of the authenticity of the past with the charm of technological modernity, to the point of obtaining a product without equal: the nectar of Cerignola.