Cian du Giorgi is one of the excellences of La Spezia’s territory, a small winery in the Cinque Terre National Park near Portovenere. Here, everything revolves around recovery, rebirth and high quality.
The owners are Riccardo Giorgi and Adeline Maillard, a couple in life and work, experts in wines and heroic viticulture. The name of their winery translates from the local dialect as ‘Giorgi’s terraces ‘.
Discover Portovenere Blog had the pleasure of interviewing Riccardo!
How was Cian du Giorgi born?
Cián du Giorgi was born from the desire to create our wine from a centuries-old vineyard in the heart of the Cinque Terre Park.
We decided to settle on the steep terraces of Liguria to revive a wine heritage that had been in decline for several decades. This decline had always weighed on my soul as a native of the region and a winemaker.
During a trek on a beautiful summer day in 2017, we laid eyes on the vineyards of Riomaggiore. Today they are our property and the fulcrum of the project.
These vines were planted a hundred years ago; some are pre-phylloxera and ungrafted. [Editor’s note: Pre-phylloxera is a designation for a European wine from the time before the phylloxera pest, i.e. at least before the year 1860.]
The vines we grow bear witness to another era: in addition to the famous Vermentino, we have other ancestral and autochthonous vines such as Bosco, Albarola, Ruzzese, Scimiscià and Bonamico.
Do you have a more traditional approach to production, or do you use innovative techniques?
Our approach is mainly based on tradition and its techniques.
We work with old vines that give us grapes with a unique taste. The fermentation of our wines is spontaneous and without the addition of yeasts. Vinification and refinement take place without adding oenological products and occur mainly in Ligurian amphorae.
What experience can visitors enjoy at Cián du Giorgi?
We organize visits to our cellar with a tasting overlooking the sea.
The winery is located in the medieval village of San Bernardino between Vernazza and Corniglia.
For those wishing to discover the heroic viticulture of the Cinque Terre, we also offer a tour with tasting in our vineyard.
Visitors can discover the values of this winemaking: respect for nature, biodiversity and hand-made processes, given the impossibility of mechanization.
Your bottles have a very particular “dress”…
Exactly! We asked Susie Barrow, an English painter who lives in the Cinque Terre, to create the labels for our bottles.
We are fervent admirers of Susie’s art and artistic approach. In her works, she brilliantly conveys the emotion one experiences during a swim in the crystalline blue sea of the Cinque Terre; or even the caress of a leaf while walking in the woods.
Susie Barrow fully immersed herself in our daily lives as winemakers, participating in the harvest and assisting in the winemaking. To create the labels with personalized pigments – and above all, to represent the soul of each of our cuvées – she took samples of soil, wood, vegetable matter and wine lees.
Is there a wine you feel particularly attached to?
Adeline feels particularly attached to our cuvée “Ade”, a rosé created in her honor. I wanted to offer her a wine that strays away from the standard commercial rosés. Our “Ade” is an elegant, intense, delicate, and profound wine, witness of an incredibly fascinating and lively territory.
Any news for 2023 to share with our readers?
The big news for 2023 is that we will have a new helper: our little Lino was born in November 2022!
Welcome, Lino! Congratulations Adeline and Riccardo – and thank you for your time with Discover Portovenere Blog.
