Antonio Camillo worked for fifteen years as a cellar master in the most important estates in Maremma (the last eight at Poggio Argentiera). Recently Antonio felt the necessity to fly with his own wings and produce his own wine so he bought two vineyards totalling five hectares in the area between Sovana and Pitigliano (in the south of Maremma on the border with Lazio).

The first documented references to the Ciliegiolo are from the early 17th century when the Florentine writer Soderini described a “Ciregiuolo dolce” with a long bunch, a somewhat large berry, and a sweet – “dolce” – and fragrant flavour. This description of the physical characteristics of the variety corresponds to present-day Ciliegiolo, as does the observation that the grape does best in notably warm climates. There exists, nonetheless, in popular and folk descriptions of Ciliegiolo, another tradition which attributes the origins of the grape to Spain and ascribes itspresence in Italy to pilgrims who returned with it to Italy from the sanctuary of Saint James in Compostela. Hence the other name once widely used for the grape in Italy: “Ciliegiona rossa tonda di Spagna”, or the “red and round Ciliegiona of Spain”. At the present time, Ciliegiolo is cultivated almost exclusively in Umbria and Tuscany. The warmth of Maremma’s growing season is reflected in well made Ciliegiolo, a wine from which the generosity and sweetness of fruit are unmistakeably Mediterranean. Maremma IGT Rosso Principio to give it more than its full name, is from forty-year-old vines, in an historic area for the production of red wines. Fermentation is in vat (with indigenous yeast) wherein the wine spends six months before bottling. It’s not an ostentatious all-singing, all-dancing number but burbles juicily with cherry, raspberry and blueberry seasoned by caraway and dry thyme. In the mouth it is fresh, youthful and mineral with a pleasing tannic structure.