A jeep rally at Fattoria Mancini

“Do you suffer from sea sickness, or stomach ache?”. This was the start, when meeting Luigi Mancini, a frank wine producer who enjoys walking around the vineyards, yet not beating around the bush, while I sit in his jeep. Is this going to be an initiation? Is it going to be an entrance test? I’m not used to car races, let’s not speak about a rally in the vineyards.

I enjoy speaking about heroic viticulture, yet I did not expect to act as hero myself. Easy left, easy right, check point. A descent with a 40% steepness. Right, the vined terraces, left, a good leap into the Adriatic Sea. At the back, the wheels slide, Mancini, however, does not flinch. Luckily he turns left and stops. Some ten barrels stand in vertical position on a terrace overlooking the sea. «In summer, this is where we organise tastings and open-air dinners».

We’re in Rive di Focara, in the area of Fiorenzuola di Focara, a hamlet of Pesaro. Despite it is midwinter, I still manage to imagine the summer. And I imagine the joy. We start again, this time uphill. Between a drift and a parabolic turn, I manage to record the fact that this side of the coast has a unique soil. Chalky sandstone and cliff. According to the pilot, excuse me, to the producer, this is a virtually perfect playground for pinot noir. And not by chance, it were the French who planted it here. «My family started to buy the land from the Napoleonic administration, when Eugenio di Beauharnais, the son of Napoleon, was Italy’s viceroy».

Meanwhile, we have stopped here. We’re in the most panoramic point of Mancini’s plots, namely Rive Alte. Here Luigi, one pickaxe blow after the other, created a breath-taking terrace surrounded by broom. We can now sit on more reassuring chairs. The label was designed by the producer himself, an extremely artistic toponomic synthesis. The same hand, for quite a few minutes, had pointed out the areas and the vineyards that are part of his property, explaining, as a new Napoleon, the character and the fruits of these lands.

«The soil is managed without any use of chemistry. As for the aerial side, half of the treatments are traditional, half are organic. In the cellar, there’s scarce use of technology but lots of common sense, using low temperatures when harvesting all the grapes, thanks to two mobile refrigerated containers». Mancini speaks about his Pinot noir as if it were a genetic heritage, something looked after and evolved during two centuries and something on which the sea has continued to blow, giving it the unique sapid and balsamic character that makes it differ from its cousins in Alto Adige or Oltrepò. «Each terrace has a different clone, chosen so it can give the best results».

After our gymkhana, it is hard to believe that bottles and glasses have arrived in one piece on the jeep. The Focara Rive 2011 pinot noir, produced only in the best vintages, is the winery’s top-range wine. Straightforward and honest, with a spicy nose, an elegant palate, it is fresh and sapid. The Sangiovese Rive 2011 is the second wine tasted, a sangiovese based wine that has little to do with the classic rich wines from Romagna. The cherry is not heavy but vibrant and closes with a slightly bitter note.

The third tasting is the most peculiar one: a pinot noir with a white wine vinification process. This albino version of Impero doesn’t hide the wood used for the maturation and is memorable thanks to its creaminess and elasticity. The last tasting is of Blu. You might think this refers to the sea. In fact, the name derives by the blue traces left on the cellar floor. This 100% ancelotta, an autochthonous grape variety commonly used to give colour to other wines, bestows incredible blackberry notes and causes amnesias when it comes to noticing the passing of time.

P.S. In fact, everything began with a reprimand, as when we met, I was cutting and putting the toscano cigar I was smoking in the car aside.