La Poiesa
Roberto Cristi
Celleri

I've mentioned time and time again my love for Emilia- Romagna, and more particularly the great Piacenza area. This small region serves as a blueprint for so many natural wines that have come into fashion in our lifetimes, and from a totally separate branch of vinicultural history. Most of the winemakers I meet here are making wine the same way their grandparents had, and the reason is obvious. The wines are squarely from a place, plainly delicious, and as close to nature as culture can come. 

     Roberto is a little bit younger, but emblematic of a generation questioning modernism. After a life in the city, Roberto returns to a family farm that housed a small community of farmers and craftspeople for many generations before him. He's interested in doing things the old way, without intervention or modern additions. His vineyards, just outside his cellar, are baked in sunlight and covered much of the year in yellow flowers -- a happy sign that nature is buzzing here and yielding its most precious fruit. 

      "People think that I'm crazy," he kept explaining to us. It's a line I've  heard several times before, but never so sincerely. He was really curious if we could see what he did in this piece of land, and if he'd shepherded all that into the glass. And, to cut a long story short, these are wines of undeniable character and authenticity. There's so much talk about what natural wine means, and what is or isn't allowed, and whether it's a viable way to make wine, and whatever else. None of these questions seem to matter with wines like these. They are what they are, without question. They are as obvious as biting into a beautiful piece of fruit: no theory required. 

2021

2020

2019