The vineyard

 

Fattoria Forano is located in the heart of the Marche region, 300 meters above sea level, near the lovely towns of Appignano, Montecassiano and Macerata. The estate consists of 21 hectares of vineyards, together with many more of arable land. The winery has always been the essence of the estate: our native wines are a delightful blend of character and elegance. The vines lie on the hills in a sunny and breezy position. Such location protects the grapes during the long growing season. We chose to focus on native vine varieties because they can incomparably express the essence of our land, but also for their outstanding potential. Ribona is the main vine variety in the D.O.C. Colli Maceratesi Ribona, Sangiovese and Montepulciano are part of the D.O.C. Rosso Piceno, while Lacrima and Vernaccia Nera are part of the production specification of D.O.C. Colli Maceratesi Rosso.

Currently, planting density in the vineyards is high (80 cm row spacing) to allow a tremendous concentration of fruit, providing more expression to the wine. Our climate is affected by the Adriatic Sea, which makes the weather moderately cold in winter and quite hot in the summer months – unless the effect of the 20 km distant sea mitigates it. In this case, the hills become breezy and the temperature range between day and night varies considerably. Such meteorological conditions give grapes the chance to reach perfect, phenolic ripeness. Moreover, in all the vineyards and especially with regard to our Montepulciano grapes which ripen last, we carry out cluster thinning before harvesting, in order to prolong the grape harvest until the end of October.

We carefully hand harvest our grapes and because our vineyards are so close to our winery, we’re able to press our grapes in perfect condition preserving the aromas and flavors in our wines.