“Vini d’Abbazia”, the “council” of wines produced in Italy’s abbeys and monasteries, is born

Monasteries, abbeys, hermitages and convents: alongside religious and cultural knowledge, in Italy’s most important wine territories, many also guard a vineyard. Because, for centuries and centuries, within their mighty walls and in the ancient cloisters, for the friars-vignerons the production of wine has always been a matter of life, spiritual, a symbol of the union between earth and heaven, man and God, of the blood of Christ and the Eucharist, but also daily, according to the rule of ora et labora. And while there are many in which the cultivation of vines has never ceased, contributing to the preservation of many native grape varieties that would otherwise have been lost, in others the production of quality wines has been rediscovered more recently, as evidenced by numerous awards and guidebooks. To recount the role that, since the Middle Ages, religious institutions have played in the history of wine, “Vini d’Abbazia” (“Abbey Wines”) was born, the “council” that, from September 2 to 4, will bring together their labels at the Abbey of Fossanova in Priverno, the oldest example of Cistercian-Gothic art in Italy and the place where St. Thomas Aquinas died, founded in the 13th century by Cistercian monks from the Monastery of Citeaux in France, a point of reference in the production of the noble wines of Burgundy.
Protagonists of the event will be abbeys, monasteries and convents located throughout Italy (selected in collaboration with Slow Wine, ed.): from Alto Adige, with the Abbeys of Novacella and Muri-Gries and with the Cantina Valle Isarco, which takes care of the vineyards of the Sabiona Monastery; to Veneto, with Praglia Abbey and Busco Abbey; from Friuli, with Rosazzo Abbey, whose thousand-year-old vineyards are entrusted to the Livio Felluga Winery; to Tuscany, with Badia a Passignano, in whose historic cellars wine is still produced thanks to the Antinori family, and the Monastery of the White Friars of Fivizzano; from Umbria, with the link between wine and religion that will be witnessed by Arnaldo Caprai (with producer Marco Caprai who will tell the story of Sagrantino from its origins, linked to St. Francis, to today’s international success), and the Monastery of Bose, with grapes grown in the lands of the Monastery of St. Masseo at the foot of Assisi, to Lazio, with artisanal wines from the Monastery of the Trappist nuns of Vitorchiano, the Abbey of Valvisciolo in Sermoneta and the Wineries of the Wine Road of Latina and the Pontine territory (Sant’Andrea, Marco Carpineti, Casale del Giglio, Cincinnato, Pietra Pinta, La Valle dell’Usignolo, Villa Gianna and Donato Giangirolami); all the way to Campania, where Feudi di San Gregorio wanted to dedicate one of its most important wines to Goleto Abbey (which, founded in 1133 in Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi, saved the native Campanian grape varieties Greco di Tufo, Fiano and Aglianico in the Middle Ages), and with Crapolla Abbey in Vico Equense. And shining the international spotlight on the event will be the participation of Les Grands Chais de France Group, with Maison François Martenot telling the story of Burgundy, with the renowned wines of the Hospices de Beaune, the ancient hospital institution whose prestige lies in the heritage consisting on the one hand of a historic monument, the Hôtel-Dieu de Beaune, and, on the other, of the wine estate among the best in Burgundy, which promotes the world's most famous charity auction.