The wine

Gasperina is by definition, “the wine’s country”; certainly not for the produced quantity, but mainly for the quality, fruit of the perfect combination between the excellence of the implanted wine varieties and the natural and human components of the cultivation.

The implanted wine plants for the white wines are the White Greek, the Malvasia, the Inzolia and the Zibibbo; for the red quality, besides the Black Greek, the Negrellone (an autochtonous variety so much rare and almost unknown to be out of list).
The hilly geographical position, the nature of the land, the favorable exposure and the microclima make rest, together with the system of implant, to the method of harvest, the techniques of winemaking, the adequacy of the wine cellars, the traditional skills of the winegrowers; not by chance our pruners were required and engaged by the wine producers from the whole district and over.
In a newspaper article devoted to the Last of the Year’s dishes from all over the regions in Italy, a well known national magazine recommended the “Red from Gasperina” in the Christmas issue, on 1971.
Also Mario Soldati, in his “Wine to wine – looking for the genuine wines”,  he writes: “I take note of a Gasperina of  ’68: 14,50; dark red; very perfumed; it looks like a Taurasi and almost to a Barbaresco”.
Once the wine was present on the table of the rich and on that one of the poor people; it represented a goods for exchange with other products of the land or with the labour; it was some precious goods to donate to friends and benefactors, or even, to make the first bath to the male newborns. Very often it was useful to collect some necessary cash for the daily expenses and, not least, to pay the taxes that always tormented the contributors’ pockets. It was sold to usual clients that came from the near towns, to the caterers from Catanzaro, to the distant estimators from the Sila that reached the place after a trip of more a day, with their carts, full barrels, carried by the mules.
If the year was a good one, and the product exceeded the satisfaction of the immediate needs, the fortunate producer, gotten the town permission, exposed a branch to the angle of the street on which he had his own wine cellar, and sold the wine directly spilled from the barrel of chestnut at cheaper prices, for the joy of the usual customers, and with the solid and enthusiastic collaboration of the colleagues of the near towns.
Today some of these customs don’t exist anymore; the production surely, doesn’t have the same production of the quantities, but the Gasperina’s wine continues to be a product of excellence present on a lot of tables.

Recommended Wine Cellars

Cantina Riillo

Wine cellar of red and white wines at Gasperina for decades. The vineyards, installed at an altitude of 550- 600 mt. in the areas of  Mbradi and Ngegna, are warmed for long part of the year by a warm sun. Most of the production comes from the grapes of the vine varieties of the Gasperinese’s tradition (Negrellone and Black Greek for the red wines; Zibibbo, Malvasia and Insolia for the white ones). To these, in the last years, the Sangiovese has been added for the red wines. The experience and the passion, together with the new technologies, transmit to the wines of the Cantina Riillo the personality and the quality necessary to be undisputed protagonists on a lot of tables.

Cantina Riillo – via Marconi, 26 – Gasperina (CZ) – Telephone: (+39) 334 7067852