Native vines
Our vineyards, planted on calcareous, mixed limestone and clay soils, come from massal selections of ancient native varieties of Trebbiano Abruzzese, Pecorino and Montepulciano. Our vineyards sits on 30 hectares (74.13 acres) enjoy a peculiar microclimate with a pleasant sea breeze coming from the Adriatic coast and cold mountain currents coming from the Maiella massif.
The age of the vineyards varies between 25 and 90 years: our Trebbiano Abruzzese vines are amongst the oldest in Abruzzo, and also our Pecorino vines, planted in 2000, represents one of the oldest plants in the region.
Trebbiano Abruzzese
Our Trebbiano Abruzzese vines are especially noteworthy as they are not just amongst the oldest in Abruzzo but because they are the real thing. True Trebbiano Abruzzese is rare; much of Abruzzo’s vineyards are actually planted to Bombino Bianco, Mostosa, and Trebbiano Toscano which were until very recently routinely confused with Trebbiano Abruzzese. However, while the four share similar features they are distinct varieties. Trebbiano Abruzzese is the most noble of the four, producing wines that while delicate and light bodied have greater depth and complexity.
Massal selections
All our vineyards are planted with our massal selections, old vines we selected within our property and then propagated in order to ensure we have plants that help us save the historical, typical, genetic heritage of the grape varieties growing on our land. We practice sustainable farming methods. We dry farm, because we want our massal selections to adapt to our soil and subsoil, climate, and the varied availability of water in order to guarantee very terroir-driven vines and grapes expressing a deep sense of the place.
Biodiversity
We believe in the importance of the presence of multiple crops and their biodiversity in the vineyards, so as to preserve, nurture and promote our ecosystem. For this reason, in our property (besides the 30 hectares of vineyards) we also take care of three hectares of forest and another three hectares of alfa-alfa, olives trees and of spontaneously growing local herbs. These spontaneous cover crops help us maintain and foster the health of our natural environment and of our soils and subsoils.
In fact, this has allowed us, after decades of practicing such agriculture, to revive and recover some typical herbs of the area such as melilotus, marigold, mauve, and licorice roots, all of which had once disappeared from the area.
We do not use any pesticides or herbicides in our vineyards and we do not use any plastic in our vineyard operations (for example, we tie our vine branches to poles or metal wires only with rafia or willow branches). This approach has greatly increased the populations in our vineyards of earthworms that are native to this terroir, but also the numbers of friendly, desirable insects such as ladybugs, butterflies, praying mantis, green lacewings and others still. At Tiberio, we try very hard to strengthen these native populations by ensuring the presence of multiple crops that are typical of and traditional to the area, and never add purchased populations of insects available commercially that might have been raised or caught in other, distant, and altogether different environments than ours.
