Nico Mangione started out as a pharmacist, but he’s been working his farm for decades, having devoted himself to cultivating vegetables, vines, and cereals, in addition to raising animals, as a hobbyist and caretaker at first. In 2005, he planted 6 hectares of Primitivo on land that he took over from his in-laws. Starting out as a small conventional winery, he began to question his soil and vine health, realizing simultaneously that the wines were not as vibrant as he wanted them to be. So in 2012, he began farming organically and began vinifying naturally without additives the next year; he has done so since . By 2015, he had given up his pharmacy to focus exclusively on farming and winemaking. In addition to the farm’s Primitivo, the winery vinifies Verdeca and Fiano with grapes from neighbors who work collaboratively (and organically) with him, ensuring the vineyards never see chemicals. The whites are made in the traditional macerated style of the region, yet another anomaly in this conventional bulk wine-driven region. To us, these wines capture the fertile, sunny Puglian flatlands without giving up acidity.

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