Ciavolich

CHIARA CIAVOLICH

Montepulciano d'Abruzzo

Loreto Aprutino (PE), Abruzzo

Chiara Ciavolich can best be described as a multifaceted person – a practical businesswoman and a fierce defender of tradition, Abruzzo, and her family’s legacy.

The bulk of her family’s landholdings are in Loreto Aprutino – an important terroir of Abruzzo, pinched between the coast and the Gran Sasso of the Apennines. Cool air funnels in from the sea and mountains, while the range also keeps cloud cover away. Her wines keenly embody this unique climate – cool climate structure married to a kaleidoscopic range of aromas that do reflect a solar edge.

In the early 2000's, Chiara was compelled to better understand the wines of her ancestors who migrated to the area in the 1500's - she even has an incredible cellar dating back to that time with a storied local history of being occupied by the SS during the Second World War. Of this desire, an important project was born – her Fosso Cancelli wines.

The Fosso Cancelli bottles are made from the oldest plots, crushed in a wooden basket press, fermented with native yeasts in old oak, concrete, or amphora without temperature control and bottled entirely by hand.

These wines do indeed radiate character, embodying a sense of history and of the land. Making a Fosso Cancelli Pecorino, Trebbiano, Montepulciano and Cerasuolo, it’s the Cerasuolo that tends to surprise the most – a rosato with g-force that will reward a decade or two of aging. We have had multiple customers tell us it’s the true dark-horse value in our book.

Chiara describes the rest of her production as somewhat influenced by the modernization of the area in the 90s – trading concrete and amphora for stainless steel, among other things. Even so, we have always found these wines to be classically proportioned and highly reflective of the land – some of the most complimented wines in our portfolio.

Importantly, Chiara talks about how she didn’t buy into the guyot training frenzy decades ago, preferring to keep most Montepulciano under the traditional pergola training system, which fosters a more linear, classic acidic structure. This is an important component to the fractured reputation that this important and ultimately noble grape has.