Mister Cinque Autoctoni

It all began with a lovely sip of “novello” wine drank in Milan, during the Identità di Carne event dedicated to cassoeula. Thanks to a further research, we learnt that Valentino Sciotti, the soul behind Farnese winery from Abruzzo, is a continuous source of ideas that go far beyond this nectar obtained thanks to carbonic maceration. He’s a person with whom it is nice to spend some time and chat. And not only because he finished as many as 8 marathons in New York – the latest one being a few days ago, with his daughter by his side – with a personal record of 3 hours and 4 minutes, something like 4’18’’ per kilometre.

Mister Sciotti, however, can be proud of other numbers: 20 million bottles sold, divided between 6 wineries (Farnese and Vigneti del Vulture in Basilicata, Vigneti Zabù in Sicily, Caldora in Ortona, Vesevo in Irpinia and Cantine Cellaro in Sambuca, again in Sicily). And a total of about 80 different labels which last years landed on the tables of as many as 77 countries across the world, «especially Germany», he tells us on the phone, «and Japan, which represents Asia, a continent to which we are more and more attracted». These are extraordinary numbers which the sportsman-entrepreneur began to rise at the end of the 90s, when, a pioneer, he went knocking on Australian and New Zealand doors, «The secret? My boldness, when I considered markets on the opposite side of the globe as populated by people with a deep oenological knowledge, an evidence that discourages many but not us, as we consider the wine-knowledge of our clients an incentive to move ahead».

In this wide range, there’s a bottle that is closer to the patron’s heart. And perhaps it is the most renowned among connoisseurs, thanks to the many prizes it has collected in over a decade, and also to the unique story of its genesis and composition. We ask Sciotti himself to sum them up for us: «It is called Cinque autoctoni and the peculiar and most evident aspect is the fact it is a table wine created with a blend from two regions, my Abruzzo and Apulia: Montepulciano, Sangiovese, Primitivo, Negramaro and Malvasia Nera. This is a vision I owe to the great British journalist Hugh Johnson, who in the beginning of our adventure, in 1996, when international wines were so popular, was brave enough to suggest: ‘you, Italians, have so many autochthonous wines that perhaps you should start focusing on them’. This may be a banal statement today, but it was revolutionary one at the time».

The next step was finding the right vineyards and the right people: «We started to collaborate with Filippo Baccalaro and Jean-Marc Saboua, who both belonged to a third generation of oenologists. They chose some profoundly rooted vineyards – those of Primitivo have been growing in that portion of land for over a century». The results arrived soon: «The first vintage, that of 1999 was put on the market at the end of 2000 and received an immediate success: an English client bought the entire vintage – 18thousand bottles – and that of the following year. As of 2001 we began to distribute this wine in Italy too». Today many enthusiasts can enjoy it, including the guests of Heinz Beck in Rome and those of dozens other different super-restaurants, from Bali to the United States.

This clamour also attracted Alessandro Benetton, partner of Farnese after the recent demise of its president, Camillo De Iuliis. «Benetton», Sciotti reveals «likes our business model very much, but most of all he likes our love for raw materials. He already has a very small winery which he manages with his father but he’s crazy about wines from Abruzzo. When we told him we had also opened a market in Nicaragua he lit up». Who knows what will happen next?