We absolutely fell in love with this wine!  Marco is considered 'crazy' by his neighbors as he is the only one experimenting with amphorae.  This amphora is stored above ground and quite round.  Unlike most Cesanese, it is elegant, clean and refreshing.  This region has only really started bottling wine in the last several decades so what he has achieved in remarkable.  Loving it as much as we did, we bought the entire amphora.  

Diogene comes from a buried amphora or qvevri as they call it in Georgia, where wine originated some 8,000 years ago.  This was the tradition since the beginning of time.  Being buried, the temperature stays optimal and constant, and the shape of the amphora allows for a natural clarification.  Nothing in, nothing out in this wine. 

"The culture of natural wine is what will allow us to preserve the planet's ecosystem in the coming years. After all, we are already trying to go back", underlines Marco Falcone, infectious disease specialist and winemaker in Piglio, just 1 hour east of Rome.

A desired and necessary commitment also in the world of wine because the resources "at our disposal are what they are".

Very high density sapling vines, green manure between the rows for soil fertility. Considered a heretic due to the contrast of his ideas with the local tradition regarding viticulture, pruning and the use of amphorae, today he spends his energies seeking the perfect balance between all the components of the environment.

Last philosophical thoughts.... If it is true that man and vineyard must coexist, it is equally true that man should not be vegetalized, much less anthropized the vine (says the biodynamic winemaker who also believes in vaccines, as many of his natural wine friends shun his 'Green Pass').   While biodynamics believes in not putting any conventional treatments on the vines, Marco has seen lungs of many Covid patients and says I'll do whatever I have to not to have that horror in my life.  The idea is that humans are humans and plants are plants.