Umberto Cesari

Umberto Cesari and his wife Giuliana started the company in 1965 with twenty hectares in the hills of Emilia-Romagna, with a single ambition: to make Sangiovese that could stand comparison with anything from over the border in Tuscany.

That was an unfashionable aim. Romagna has always grown Sangiovese in quantity, but the region's reputation was for volume rather than quality, and the grape was assumed to reach its best only further south. The estate now covers 355 hectares divided into named vineyards, La Casetta, Parolino, Ca Grande, Laurento, Liano, Claterna, Miravalle and Tauleto, each vinified separately.

The family have also revived Uva Longanesi, a red variety found growing wild on a farmhouse wall in Romagna in the 1950s and now grown by a small number of local producers, and they use terracotta amphorae for part of the range. Emilia-Romagna is better known for Lambrusco and for its food than for serious still wine, which makes what Cesari have built quietly remarkable.