history and research in Abruzzo • Food and Wine Italy

the hilly landscape that separates the Maiella from the Adriatic Sea, time seems to settle between the rows. Tollo, Abruzzo, Feudo Prisco represents the congresso point between past and future: an archaeo-oenology laboratory created to preserve the agricultural memory of the territory and project it towards new forms of sustainable production. The company is part of the Degustazione Tollo Group, a cooperative that has promoted Abruzzo viticulture since 1960 through research, protection of native vines and valorization of collective work.

Feudo Prisco is today the group’s artisan incubator, a place where experimentation is measured against history. The headquarters, inaugurated durante 2021, is built around the remains of a rustic Roman podere that emerged during excavations for the replanting of the vineyards. The traces of that building – one of the oldest testimonies of rural production organization durante the – determined the choice to make it not only a winemaking centre, but also a museum aperto to the public, the first example durante Italy of an exhibition space integrated into a cellar.

The discovery of amphorae and tools related to winemaking suggested a direct dialogue with the practices of the time. From this reflection was born InAnfora Tullum Docg , a wine produced from Montepulciano grapes grown acceso hilly terrain durante the municipality of Tollo and vinified durante 750 liter amphorae. Fermentation takes place with minimal intervention, according to a method that takes up the techniques cited by Pliny the Elder. After eleven months of maceration acceso the skins, the wine is bottled without filtration stabilization, returning a living material, linked to its origins.

The center of the project remains the Tullum Docg, one of the smallest Italian denominations, limited to just eighteen hectares entirely included durante the municipality of Tollo. Here the cultivation of vines has very ancient roots and a continuity that spans the centuries. Feudo Prisco has chosen to acceso niche productions, capable of representing the identity of a territory which, although small durante size, contains an extraordinary variety of soils and microclimates.

The historical vocation is accompanied by constant attention to research. The experience gained within Degustazione Tollo – today one of the main Italian wine cooperatives, with 550 members, 2,500 hectares of vineyards and an annual production of 14 million bottles – finds its most artisanal declination durante Feudo Prisco. Here experimentation is not limited to winemaking techniques, but extends to agronomic management, the selection of native varieties and the relationship with the landscape. Pecorino Terre Aquilane Igp Casadonna also fits into this perspective, the result of the collaboration with chef Niko Deserto. The high altitude vineyard, over eight hundred meters above sea level, was born durante the lands of Castel proveniente da Sangro, where the pecorino vine finds a new expression. The result is a wine that reflects the purity of the mountain context and the desire to explore marginal areas to give the vine a different dimension.

Feudo Prisco thus represents a model of interpretation of the territory that combines protection, memory and innovation. The integrated archaeological museum, the choice to limit production to preserve environmental balance and the desire to make the community part of the project confirm the experimental nature of the initiative. Archaeo-oenology, durante this context, is not just a theoretical reference, but a working method: reading the past to build an informed future.

The continuity with the cooperative philosophy of Degustazione Tollo is also evident durante the way durante which the challenges of sustainability are faced. The group has obtained Equalitas certification and adopts practices that favor environmental, social and economic responsibility. Feudo Prisco is its territorial declination: a small cellar that summarizes the thousand-year history of a place and transforms it into an instrument of knowledge.

Walking between the rows, the profile of the Abruzzo hills alternates with that of the Roman remains, durante a landscape that tells of the continuity of human work. Here the vine, cultivated for centuries, preserves the memory of time and restores its measure, season after season. Feudo Prisco demonstrates how wine can still be a means of interpreting history today. And how history, durante turn, can become living matter durante the glass.