Well, Grandfather started making wine in this place in 1964. And before him his father and his grandfather were making wine as well and that’s how he as a kid learned how to make wine, by spending time with his grandfather and learning as much as he could. And then at the age of 32 he decided to make a life out of wine and that’s when he started working the hectare that we have right in front of the house and making bottles. Before the wine used to be produced and not bottled and then after he started he began bottling that wine and selling it.

Yes, so diverse and so many microclimates involved. We are lucky it’s a region that is right in the center of Italy and right on the edge of the Adriatic coast and here at Pepe we are in the northernmost part of Abruzzo and very close to the Adriatic Sea. So we basically have the Adriatic 10 kilometers away and we have the Gran Sasso which is the highest peak of the Apennines 60 kilometers away, so in 80 kilometers you go from almost 2,000 meters to the sea level. So it’s really really steep and you have a lot of sea breezes constantly coming up and you have a lot of cold air coming from the mountains at night and so it is such a unique combination of elements that also allowed Grandfather to make wine in a very very windy area. He was lucky enough not to have to put a lot of stuff to protect his vineyards from mildew and diseases because this microclimate was kind of allowing him to have pretty healthy grapes just without a lot of attention needed.

But back in the day this area was clearly all covered by water so the soils are just full of salt and minerals just because of the sea. And now we have a lot of clay on the topsoil and then it’s all limestone in the bottom so the roots just go deeply into the limestone and just try to get everything from it. Grandfather clearly has never used any chemicals so the roots just go deep into the soil to look for everything they need from water to minerals and salts to nourishment. 

Now the very old vineyards that we have go back to six or seven meters so its quite good luck.