THE VISION
I want to release the strength of our land and
Interpret it to the very top. So that it gives life to a wine
Absolute, an unequivocal wine, a unique wine
Claudio Drei Donà
WINES
In the early 1980s, wine enthusiast Count Claudio Drei Donà decided to leave his career in law and devote himself to the world of wine full-time. He took care to detach the sign from his office and affix it to the door of the estate winery: ‘Avv. Claudio Drei Donà’. With this simple gesture he had already declared his style: self-taught, visionary, determined and dreamer.
In the years to follow he would create an out-of-the-box winery with a strong personality and unmistakable elegance that was difficult to replicate and admired around the world.
Upon his arrival, the estate produced Sangiovese grapes partly for sale in bulk to third parties and partly vinified and sold in bottles. He began from the early 1980s the replanting of new vineyards and then began winemaking in the renovated winery.
Claudio, Venetian by origin and Romagnolo by adoption, had a clear vision: to produce in Romagna great wines with international appeal.
To this end he decided to plant two of the most famous international grape varieties in the world: Chardonnay, with which he later produced the famous Il Tornese, and Cabernet Sauvignon-at the time still not allowed in Romagna-from which Magnificat was born.
Success was not long in coming, already in 1997 the 1993 Magnificat with 96/100 won 6th place among the top100 wines in the world for Wine Enthusiast.
In 1998, on the other hand, Tornese 1995 was awarded the three bicchieri and declared the best white wine of Italy by Gambero Rosso.
Eclectic, curious by nature, Claudio was friendly nicknamed “the gardener of Versailles” for the extreme precision with which he tended his vines. He could be met between the rows dressed in one of his tweed jackets and tie or while working in the cellar to the notes of Chopin’s Nocturnes.
In addition to his international ambitions, Claudio had a deep love for his adopted homeland, Romagna.
Sangiovese di Romagna was not held in particular esteem, either in Italy or abroad; Claudio’s ambition was to create wines of excellence from 100 percent Sangiovese grapes.
Vigna del Pruno and Notturno, born from this vision, have now established themselves as iconic Sangiovese wines from Predappio, Romagna.
A company that has best traversed generational changes by knowing how to build on the past.
Claudio then, Ida and Enrico today, have always imagined something that did not yet exist. They never produced simple table wines, but always aspired to create something extraordinary to enhance the precious territory they inherited.
Like a sailboat that sails into the vastness of the oceans to get where no one has ever gone before, so the Drei Donàs lead their winery.
A delicate balance between ancient methods and avant-garde ideas.
THE PRODUCTION PHILOSOPHY
When Claudio started in the early 1980s, the great school of wines was mainly French, and in Italy the most renowned producers had just begun to offer a new generation of great wines.
Since then, the winery has been following a philosophy inspired by the model of a Bordeaux chateau that involves absolute respect for the fruit, to enhance the soul of a soil and bring its essence to life.
A precise method is followed for all wines, extreme rigor before, during and after the harvest always respecting the rhythms and cycles of nature. The harvest is done by hand, in small boxes, selecting the best grapes.
The meticulous work in the cellar, also done by hand, vinifying separately vineyard by vineyard, with long macerations, indigenous yeasts, natural sedimentation of the wine with decanting from above, then continues with the slow aging in wood and in terracotta amphorae.
The Predappio DOC “Notturno” matures in large wooden barrels, while the Riserva wines “Vigna del Pruno,” “Magnificat” and “Graf Noir” mature in French barriques and terracotta amphorae.
With the introduction of “Note DI CANTINA” we began to encapsulate, in a kind of diary, all those sensations and emotions we had from time to time in the cellar.
A barrique or an amphora that particularly struck us, a well-successful experiment that we felt we wanted to put in the bottle to keep in memory.
“Note di Cantina” is our personal diary.
Biodiversity is a heritage that we have always carefully guarded.
As early as 1987 Claudio Drei Donà founded, within Confagricoltura Forlì, the association for the development of sustainable agriculture Agricoltura Viva.
In 1992 he began conducting vineyards according to the dictates of integrated pest management, a crop defense practice that involves a drastic reduction in the use of pesticides by implementing various measures, including the abandonment of all chemical weeding.
In 2015, the organic conversion of all the estate’s vineyards began, culminating in certification, and in 2020 the biodynamic agricultural conversion began.
100% solar energy is used on the estate.
