Urlari’s owner and founder, Roberto Cristoforetti was born to generations of farmers in Tuenno, a village near Trento in Trentino-Alto Adige in mountainous northern Italy. As a youth he worked with his father in their apple orchards and as a registered fruit farmer he now oversees the family orchards. Roberto began to dream of experimenting with the different elements of winemaking that he had observed to create fine wines. Convinced that Tuscany’s soil and terrain offers the best wine-growing region in the world for a modern wine, he searched the area known as the Etruscan Coast of Tuscany until he located a field named “Urlari” that offered an elevated position, continuous sun exposure and rich virgin soil. He purchased the field in 2004 and named his company after it: Azienda Agricola Urlari.
The vineyard, located about 12 miles north of Bolgheri, lies between 720-800 feet above sea level, overlooking the Mediterranean sea and rolling interior hills of Tuscany. Together, co-founder Mary Kate Buckley and winemaker Jean-Philippe Fort work alongside Roberto to create a unique combination of Italian viticulture with French winemaking techniques specializing in the native Sangiovese grape alongside Bordeaux varietals that thrive in the coastal Tuscan terroir.
The vineyard is planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Alicante Bouschet and Petit Verdot as well as the native Sangiovese. The grapes are picked into 33 lb crates and are handled as gently as possible from the moment they enter the winery. The grapes are separated by machine from the leaves and stems before being lightly crushed and loaded into conical fermentation tanks designed to increase the contact surface between the liquid and the skins. Each variety has its own dedicated tanks and the winery has enough capacity to hold the entire harvest at once, so fermentation need never be rushed.
Fermentation temperature is controlled by computer and the grapes are given a cold-soak of at least two days. Fermentation lasts approximately 2 weeks, with pumpovers conducted every six hours. The wines are then pressed and the wine racked into French oak barrels. The skins will be composted and returned to the fields as fertilizer. The medium-toasted barrels are imported from Nadalie, a cooperage located in Ludon Medoc, France. The wines age for approximately 12 months in the barrel and at least 6 months in the bottle prior to their release from the winery.
Product:
