Family tradition
Our family has owned the land that today constitutes the estate called Murogrosso since 1971.
That year Massimo Calabresi, an engineer and entrepreneur descendant of an ancient family of the Roman bourgeoisie deeply connected to agriculture, viticulture, olive growing and semi-wild cattle breeding in the Roman countryside, bought it.
The development of such activities dates back to at least the 17th century in Cerveteri, 40 km north of Rome near the coast, famed for the Etruscan necropolis of “Banditaccia.”
The family gained increasing importance in Cerveteri both in the public administrative sector during the First Roman Republic (1798) and in the social sphere with the welfare activities aimed at young seasonal agricultural workers promoted by the mystical Rosa Calabresi (1743-1805).
In 1865 Paolo Calabresi undertook under the supervision of the Papal State a campaign of archaeological excavations in the Etruscan Necropolis during which important hypogean tombs were opened and important artefacts were found, today mostly kept in a room of the Vatican Museums, including the “Calabresi Urn.”
In continuity with the family tradition on the Murogrosso estate, in addition to starting a semi-wild cattle farm, the first 2 hectares of vineyards were planted in 1972 according to the Orvieto DOC specification.
It is then Giovanni an engineer by profession but deeply rooted in the family tradition who gave full development to the winemaking activity in the 1980s and 1990s.
The winery's history
The Murogrosso estate is situated among the hills bordering the eastern end of the Valdichiana where a Roman-era wall structure called “Muro Grosso,” found in Leonardo da Vinci's plans, allowed the Cassia Traianea road to pass over the Chiani River.
After its purchase in 1971, the estate's hilly land was used for semi-wild cattle breeding, while the fertile, irrigated land along the river was used for the production of silage corn for the barn, thus supplementing the semi-wild cattle breeding of the family farms in Campagnano and Cerveteri.
In the ‘80s Giovanni, a civil engineer and university professor already involved in the field of recovery and conservation of historic buildings, devoted himself to the restoration of the old farmhouses using the original materials and construction techniques.
In the 1980s and 1990s, changes in the agricultural economy led the company to abandon the cattle breeding to seek new production directions, especially to enhance the use of the hilly areas. In this context, the area dedicated to viticulture have progressively increased, taking into account their location in the production area of Orvieto DOC and IGT.
Vineyards and cellar
The vineyard created in 1971 on the slope below the village of Carnaiola with the five traditional Orvieto DOC grape varieties, (“Trebbiano”, “Verdello”, “Malvasia”, “Grechetto” and “Drupeccio”) was expanded in the 1990s according to the new specification by adding Chardonnay.
In the upper part of the same slope, where the soil is characterized by complex geological stratification, red grape varieties were then planted: “Sangiovese”, “Cabernet Frank”, “Cabernet Sauvignon” and “Merlot”.
At the same time, a new modernly equipped winery was built on the ground floor of an old farmhouse restored according to the strictest traditional techniques.
The expansions have not changed the vocation of the winery, which was born out of passion, with the desire for a small production of quality wines.
In this philosophy fits the possibility of visiting the winery touching every step of production personally accompanied by those who have been doing the work for more than 30 years.
Attention to the environment pushes the winery to pursue a strong reduction of treatments in the vineyard and to zero the costs of cooling the cellar thanks to major investments in solar panel systems.
