Oria's First Brandy Is Born
Alongside Vittorio Capovilla

Distillation is the alchemy of wine. And Vittorio Capovilla is, beyond any possible argument, the finest alchemist in Italy.

There are people in the artisanal world who are an absolute reference in their field. In Italian distillation, that place is held by Vittorio Capovilla, from Rosà, in the province of Vicenza. His grappe and his fruit distillates are studied in sommelier schools around the world as an example of what artisanal distillation can produce when the distiller refuses to simplify.

Roberto has known him for twenty years. Theirs is the kind of friendship built between people who share the same obsession with raw material: the conviction that the work begins long before the product reaches the still, the press or the barrel.

In January 2025, Vittorio spent three days at Oria.

The question that brought him here

The question Roberto posed to Vittorio was simple in its statement and complex in its answer: "What would you do with the Sangiovese of Val d'Orcia if you could work with it freely?"

Vittorio took three weeks to answer by phone. When he did, he said: "I want to see it before I tell you anything. Sangiovese is too complicated to talk about without having felt it in the place where it grows."

That is exactly what Roberto wanted to hear.

Three days in the vineyard and the cellar

On the first day, Vittorio spent hours in the vineyard. He tasted grapes straight from the vine — we were in January, with the canes pruned and the vines at rest — and examined the soil. He asked for galestro samples to take back to Vicenza. He asked about the temperatures of each month, about the difference between dawn and midday in August, about the north winds that arrive from the Apennines.

On the second day, he worked in the cellar. He tasted the previous year's wine — the Oria 2024, still in barrel — and also the pomace: the Sangiovese marc that is normally returned to the field as fertilizer. That pomace — the raw material of grappa — kept him busy for hours.

"Grappa reflects everything that was in the grape," Vittorio explained to the team gathered in the cellar. "A mediocre Sangiovese grappa comes from mediocre Sangiovese pomace. This raw material is extraordinary. It has an acidity in the pomace I have not seen in any other area of Tuscany."

Two projects, two philosophies

At the end of the third day, Vittorio presented his vision for Oria. Not one, but two distinct projects:

The Grappa di Sangiovese Oria: distilled in a discontinuous copper still, at low pressure, with the fresh pomace of the harvest. The aim is to capture the aromatic profile of galestro Sangiovese — the cherry, the violet, the mineral base — in distilled form. No wood. A white grappa of maximum varietal expression.

The Brandy di Toscana: this is the more ambitious project. Vittorio proposes distilling young Sangiovese wine — not pomace, but the complete wine — and aging it in small French oak barrels for a minimum of five years. The result would be a brandy of Italian appellation, with the terroir of Val d'Orcia as its signature. "Italy has never produced a great terroir brandy," said Vittorio. "There is no technical reason for that. Only a lack of ambition."

"A great distillate is born before distillation. It is born in the vineyard, in the choice of clone, in the exact moment of harvest. The still invents nothing. It only reveals what was already there." — Vittorio Capovilla

What comes next

The first experimental distillation — the white grappa — will be made with the pomace of the 2025 harvest. Oria's Quadro members will receive a numbered bottle from this first distillation. It is a privilege no commercial distillate can offer: to know exactly which vineyard it came from, in which year it was harvested, and who distilled it.

The brandy will take longer. Its first five years of wood will be completed in 2030. But the barrels are already ordered. And the 2025 wine is already waiting its turn in Vittorio's still.

Some of the best things in the world are in no hurry.