Producer Profile: Oasi degli Angeli

Jan 12

Marco Casolanetti is the fifth generation of his family to live and tend to their 17 hectares of land in the heart of Piceno, sitting very far south along the coast of Marche. He is the first generation to focus the property on their old Montepulciano and Bordo (the local Grenache) grape vines, and began to plant more vineyards, replacing old fields of grain that the family always madeorzo pasta from, a local favorite.

Marco is a visionary; a man with an engineer’s brain and a winemaker’s passion. As with the generations that preceded him, he is as natural in the winery as he is in the fields. Vines are grown in remarkably high densities (one vineyard has 50,000 vines per hectare!) and produce very low yields per plant; giving incredible focus and purity to the grapes on this alluvial soil. In the cellar, only new French Grenier oak is used, no sulphur until bottling, and ample time in bottle before release, creating some of the most remarkable wines to come from the Marche.

“Eleonora Rossi and Marco Casolanetti have become famous for their Kurni, an iconic Montepulciano first made in 1997. Methods include extremely tight spacing of the vines (up to an unbelievable 50,000 vines per hectare), very low yields and minimal intervention in the cellar. Casolanetti uses 200% new oak: depending on the vintage, after the wine spends an initial 12 months or so in new oak, it is aged a further 12 to 18 in new oak barriques).