Contesa was founded in 2000 from the tenacity of Rocco Pasetti, enologist and head of the family, who has made the strength of his company from youth and perseverance.
The roots of the Contesa Company put down from the beginning of the last century when in the Miglianico field, when a little village of the ancient Reign of Italy, two big land owners of the area wasted part of their vineyards under odd circumstances… about oaks and “contended” vineyards.
A brief story demonstrates how strong is the love and the attachment to the land and to the agriculture, well regarded as the main means of support, in this territory:
“The enologist Dr. Rocco’s great grandfather, Mr. Antonio, was a capable wine-grower and wine-maker and he was the owner of a Vineyard where, on the property line of his neighbor’s land, a centuries-old oak was standing, it was so huge that the arms of five men we needed to completely surround its trunk; its mighty branches and its bushy foliage covered with shadows a portion of his vineyard threatening the quality of his grapes. His requests of reducing the bulk of the big oak were never accepted by his neighbors, so Rocco’s great granfather used to feed his pig with the many acorns falling down from the oak on his ground land. His neighbors didn’t appreciate this kind of initiative and he even thought of turning to the Court of Ortona to force him to pay for the all the acorns that were eaten by the pig. …” That’s how the quarrel began between the two who wanted to defend their own land products, the acorns and the grapes. Many of “Zi Antonije”’s pigs got fat under the oak, but many were the lands that the two owners lost to bear the legal expense as well.
Today Dr. Rocco feels the same affection for land and vineyards as his great grandfather, and he himself has been in the center of a quarrel caused by the split of his father’s old company and from which the new company arised. That’s the reason why he wanted to call his company CONTESA, as to be a warning for the new generations to keep on defending their jobs and their choices with the same perseverance, coherence, integrity.
The wine cellar, completed in 2004, is provided with monitored temperature steel tanks, allowing obliged quality check with low enologic impact.
Time has a leading role, it is accurately fulfilled in the silence of the “bottaia” were the barriques and the oak of Slavonia barrels of medium and high capacity are arranged.
30 hectares of property vineyards develop around the wine cellar on a south-east oriented hill at 250 meters above the sea level. The grapes take advantage of a wide temperature range between night and day and a decent rainfall focused during autumn and spring seasons.
The land, composed mainly by clay soil, gives full of extracts wines, with full and bright colours, very enduring; the slight presence of limestone facilitates a higher alcoholic content and intense scents.
The vineyards of Montepulciano, Sangiovese e Trebbiano are grown at spurred rope, instead the Vigneto al Lago located on the lowest part of the hill, where the pecorino grapes are cultivated, is raised at guyot, with high-density amount of plants for hectare, giving less carrying capacity weight to the single plant, offering maximum expression and high quality to the wine, resulting in an authentic interpretation of the land.
To guarantee a genuine product, low-impact anti-parasitics and herbicides are used.
