Three generations of the Casali family — from grandfather Mario's 1940 farm to Silvia, Francesco, and Daniele today — produce ten wines across Romagna's full indigenous palette: Sangiovese in four expressions including the Mario Magnum (330 bottles per year), the rare Famoso white, and the extraordinary Our Inspiration sparkling wine aged 165 feet below the Adriatic Sea. Three generations. Ten wines. One extraordinary sparkling wine. Available through UniqueWines.
Rediscovering and preserving indigenous Emilian varieties that were nearly lost to history.
Clay-rich soils of the Apennine foothills, with cool nights that preserve natural acidity.
Love for the land, respect for nature and its periods, research into the best productive technologies, and a desire to experiment in order to create emotions sip after sip — these are the ingredients of Tenuta Casali's wines, born in 1978 thanks to Valerio and Paolo who continued grandfather Mario's dream with his small farm situated in the hills of Mercato Saraceno since 1940. Today the family-run business extends on an area of fifty hectares and relies on the passion of the new generation: Silvia, Francesco, and Daniele.
The twenty hectares of vineyards lie on an old fluvial terrace with underlying layers of gravel, benefiting from an important temperature fluctuation between day and night that imparts intensity of aromas and flavours to the wines. Vinification and ageing take place in the family wine cellar, equipped with a photovoltaic system. This is a fully modern, sustainable estate rooted in an agricultural tradition that began with grandfather Mario and has grown, across three generations, into one of Romagna's most comprehensive wine producers.
Romagna's wines are born from local grapes with a long history — Sangiovese, Albana (the first white wine to receive DOCG status in Italy in 1987), Trebbiano, Famoso, and Cabernet Sauvignon — and Tenuta Casali works across this full indigenous and adapted palette with equal seriousness.
VIGNA BARUCCIA is the estate's Sangiovese — red, traditional fermentation with post-fermentation macerations, five months in used French oak barrels. VIGNA PALAZZINA takes the Sangiovese further with thirteen months in new and used French oak. QUARTOSOLE is the estate's Cabernet Sauvignon in traditional fermentation with post-fermentation macerations and thirteen months in oak. DAMIANUS is a blend of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot in traditional fermentation and six months in stainless steel with subsequent bottle ageing.
MARIO MAGNUM is the estate's most ambitious wine — a Sangiovese produced exclusively in favourable vintages, in magnum format, with only 330 produced each year. Traditional fermentation, twenty months in twenty-hectolitre wooden vats. Each year's production is a subsequent ATTO — an act of winemaking that the estate treats as performance as much as production.
FAMOSO is the estate's white from the Famoso grape — a rare Romagna variety — cold-fermented, aged six months sur lie in stainless steel. VILLA ZAPPI is the Trebbiano Romagnolo. CAVALIERE is a sparkling Blanc de Noir. ONDINA 33 is a bianco cold fermentation white. OUR INSPIRATION is arguably the estate's most extraordinary wine: a Spumante Sangiovese newly fermented in bottle, aged for twelve months inside a cargo at 165 feet below the level of the Adriatic Sea — producing a sparkling wine that the estate describes as bottling the energy of Nature itself. Available through UniqueWines.
