Lammidia: Blind Tastings Are the Best

I honestly can’t remember where and when we first met with Marco and Davide, the merry duo of friends behind Lammidia. Probably back in our early days, 10 years ago. I love their wines and the energy that perfectly matches who they are as people – always up for a good time.

I’ve been keeping an eye on their journey from their native Pescara, Abruzzo to global recognition of their idiosyncratic, colourful bottles, as we started roughly around the same time and became friends. Authenticity and warmth—that’s what Lammidia means to me.

While Davide was busying himself with opening a restaurant AND making wine in Ibiza (I'm happy to not be the only one hustling 30 different ideas at the same time, haha), Marco kindly took the time to answer my curious questions about their journey, past mistakes and future plans. All this despite already dealing with starting harvest, as this vintage that's been very early for both of us. Grande.

Words by Milan Nestarec & Lucie Kohoutová / Photos courtesy of Lammidia

It's August 8 and you've already begun harvesting. How is it going?

2024 has been hot and dry, but not extreme—or so we thought. In the end, we realised that the minimal temperatures have been incredibly high, which is why we are 15(!) days ahead in ripeness. We started with Moscato, as always, and continued with some Pecorino and Pinot Noir, finishing the latter yesterday at 14% potential ABV.

I know it's too early to evaluate the vintage, but how was the vegetation cycle for you this year? For example, we had twice as much water as in normal years. We're, of course, happy about that, but these fluctuations remind us more and more that we need to manage the vineyards in a smarter way, more individually, and keep our eyes open to what is happening around us. How do you guys perceive it?

This year, we kept more shoots and leaves on the plants, betting on a dry season after a very rainy and difficult 2023. We risked having to pass twice everywhere, but we were right, and we saved the vintage. Vegetation is good, but we still have some burnt vines here and there. Another very important practice for us is not tilling the soil. Our steep and clay soils must be preserved from erosion. We also noticed that this way, the soils retain more life, and the musts have better nitrogen levels.

You and Davide have known each other since childhood – I'm intrigued about that, your previous jobs, and generally about the time before Lammidia. Do you remember it fondly?

We went to school together from the age of 3, and even after school, we spent time together, playing football on the streets of our neighbourhood, Pescara Colli, which was in the countryside back then. Later, we rode these same streets on our scooters, when we were 14. I only fell once—when Davide was driving my scooter. [Laughs]

We also lived together during our university years in Rome, from 2002 to 2005, when he finally started to drink wine—first whites, then reds. A few months later, we started attending fairs and visiting winemakers, and in 2007, we discovered "natural wines" thanks to Triple A, the manifesto of the Velier distribution company [Nestarec distributor in Italy btw]. It was an epiphany for us. In 2 or 3 years, we visited many winemakers and only talked about this until we decided in 2010 to see if it was possible to make wine with just grapes, as some "crazy man" said.

What was essential for the creation of Lammidia? Was it a desire to change your life, a meeting with another grower, or perhaps one particular bottle that inspired you?

In the beginning, it was just a hobby, but since the first vintage, we realised it was much more. Davide moved back from Milan, and we rented a vineyard, studied a lot of agronomy and enology, and asked many winemakers many questions. I still remember that moment in Laureano Serres's cellar when he told me, "Do this. What now seems like a dream—making natural wines, seeing your bottles travel all over the world, talking with other vignerons as colleagues—this will all come true."

And it all did, indeed! How would you describe your terroir in Abruzzo?

Our region is small but very heterogeneous. Abruzzo is essentially big mountains in the West and the Adriatic Sea in the East. In between, you have maybe one hundred little rivers and one thousand little hills. Historically, families owned small farms all over the area, so you find a mix of olive groves, vineyards, and small cereal fields. The landscape is great, I think.

Our main vineyard is located between the coast and the Gran Sasso mountain which peaks at almost 3,000 metres above sea level, and it has clay soil with a lot of limestone. We also have 3 hectares in the Ofena Valley which is between the mountains, with a very strong thermal excursion and black-sand and silty soils.

You grow vines using three training systems: Classic Guyot, Pergola, and Gobelet. I'm familiar with Guyot and can imagine the challenges and advantages of Gobelet, but Pergola is more of a mystery to me. What is the yield on the vines? Are the grapes better shaded? Why aren't there more vines planted using pergolas around the world?

Pergola, also called "capanna" or "tendone" (big tent in Italian, haha) here in Abruzzo, is a very smart planting system, but it was historically seen as just a high-yield method. You could say it's like having four Guyot plants, spaced 2.5 metres in each direction, so you have 1,600 vines per hectare. It's a very good system to fight heat because all the bunches are well-shaded, but it's risky during rainy periods if you work as we do – not cutting the grass, only rolling over the weeds, and no tilling. It's also risky if heavy snow falls before pruning; you sometimes see big vineyards' trellises collapse, a disaster. If you work reasonably, the yield is the same as Guyot in rows, but if you're tall and buy a pergola planted by a short man 50 years ago, you might find yourself in big trouble.

You are also introducing varieties from other regions, like Savagnin, Riesling or Poulsard. I like this cross-pollination – though I try to stick to my beloved Veltliner and Blaufränkisch on our new plantations – I've tasted Savagnin from Burgenland and the Pfalz, and it seemed to work. Historically, it was cultivated in our country too. So I'm wondering how all that works for you – and when can we buy the first Lammidia Savagnin bottle?

We've always liked to experiment, and planting allochthonous varieties is a nice challenge, though sometimes working with our local varieties is even more challenging… With Pinot Noir, it took us some vintages to find our way, but with Riesling, already the first vintage, in 2023, was incredibly satisfying. Maybe it adapts better to our terroir, or maybe we just got lucky with the right rootstocks or the right vinification...

With Poulsard and Savagnin, we are regrafting the rootstocks we planted three years ago. It's a hard job; we've pruned three times in Jura, bringing back the cuttings. But preserving them until May when you can graft them caused big problems for us, so we'll have to go back there again. At the moment, we have approximately 100 Poulsard vines that we've already harvested and 400 Savagnin plants that we'll harvest shortly. So, to find them in a bottle, you'll have to wait at least two more years...

But I can reveal that we have a special barrique that will be out on the market this autumn: Montepoulsard 2023. We were in Jura for the first time during the harvest because mildew hit us badly last year, so we had more time to travel. Our friend Sébastien Jacques had a lot of juice fermenting, and since you can't leave his house without a gift, he gave us 110 litres of Poulsard, which we blended with another 110 litres of our Montepulciano Rosato in this barrel.

Wow, that sounds like a special wine indeed. It's true that you travel a lot and observe other winemakers closely. Is there anything in grape growing that you have brought to your region that took root? Something that changed the way you work in the vineyard, its balance, and the resulting structure of the must? Is it often about the details? How about, for example, not cutting the apex of vines? I'd love to learn something!

The first time I saw the Gobelet system, it looked like a hobbit garden to me. When I showed the pictures to old farmers at home, they laughed heartily... Travelling a lot and seeing differences is very important, and I'm not just talking about wine.

Not cutting the apex is good for the plant but sometimes risky for the yield... We decide on a row-by-row basis.

In 2013, we planted our Sperimental vineyard to see if a different kind of agriculture was possible. After several years of failure and some very satisfying harvests, we have to say that working like this on a large scale is not sustainable. That's why we added tutores [chestnut poles that support the vines], started to spray occasionally, and accepted that we'll be harvesting only in perfect vintages. Wines from this vineyard include Rosso Empirico (20/21/22) and Bianco Empirico (only 22). We think the most important thing is not disturbing the soil, preserving life in the first layers. Our masters are Claude and Lydia Bourguignon and Masanobu Fukuoka.

I see that you're focusing more and more on the expression of a single vineyard. Does this mean you'll be including the vineyard name on the label, or is it mainly about not mixing grapes from different vineyards to avoid averaging the resulting taste? How do you approach this? Of course, we all have eyes fixed on Burgundy and the terroir-based classification...

A year or two ago, I found myself at a table at a fair, talking about soils and how each variety adapts to different terroirs in our region—a topic we used to find a bit boring just a few years ago. Ten years ago, we mostly talked about vinification or ageing methods – and our past cuvée names reflected that, such as Rosso Carbo, Bianco Anfora…

So, on one hand, I have to admit we're getting older and maybe a bit boring, but on the other hand, we're happy to be more focused on what we dare to call quality, haha.

We would like to include the name of the variety and the geographic details, but we're not allowed to, by Italian law. We only have the right to call our wines "vino da tavola" because they're not considered "traditional." This so-called “tradition” involves chemical banana yeasts, yields 300 hectoliters per hectare, and not paying workers... But I think this problem is the same wherever you go.

I think we're about the same age and started around the same time. How long have we known each other, 10 years? I observe how my taste in wines evolves over time, my understanding of it, my drinking preferences. How is it with you, are you experiencing something similar?

I partly answered this in the previous question. I can add that in recent years, we no longer accept major flaws, just like everyone else. But we have never resorted to interventions in vinification. We can always find a way that isn’t a shortcut. Another crucial point is that we prefer whites over macerated, orange wines. I'm sure that the best wine you can make with a white grape will always be a white. Making them naturally is clearly more challenging. One last important thing I want to mention: blind tastings are the best. Everyone suddenly becomes polite; words like "shit" or "best" disappear. And above all, you start to understand what you really like and whether you are deceiving yourself.

Do you remember your biggest mistakes? Surely you must have pivotal moments that changed your thinking. I have countless of them. Today, I laugh at them, although sometimes they hurt a lot. But they are all important and shaped me somehow. What's your take on it?

Our biggest mistakes, in no particular order:

- Planting rootstocks to re-graft.

- Telling everyone "Natural wine is easy, just put some good grapes in a vat and don't add anything." We created monsters.

- Planting the Sperimental Vineyard.

- Waiting 9 years before buying a labelling machine.

- Leaving open a big Rosso Carbo 2020 vat that was tasting incredible, but in the end, we had to bring it to the distillery.

- Being consistent at all costs.

There's a lot more I'm trying to forget…

Thank you for your candour, I appreciate it. Looking into the future, what are your plans? Any new projects? New challenges? New wines? I know you guys are restless and always up to something…

We’ll soon have a lot of new wines from new varieties we've planted. Many cuvées from 2020 and after are almost ready to hit the market. You'll taste them soon.

It has been about 10 years since the huge wave of natural wine began. A lot has happened over the years. How do you feel about today's wine scene? I'm not talking about the natural wine scene specifically, rather in general terms. Is it still necessary for winemakers to define themselves with the word "natural"? How do you feel about it?

I've noticed that during the boom of "natural wine," the number of winemakers, distributors, and wine bars grew too much. To give you an idea, in Abruzzo, I estimate there were less than 100,000 bottles of zero-zero wines produced in 2018 and more than 400,000 in 2022. I guess that "low intervention" – I hate this term – wines are not the same in percentage but are more important in absolute value. Other regions and countries are not far from these numbers. I don't know the "conventional" wine world, but I see that wine is more and more forgotten by new drinkers. A graphic I saw last week showed that Italian average consumption was 120 litres of wine per year in 1960, 70 litres in 1995, and 42 litres in 2023...

Coming back to the word "natural," I stopped defining ourselves like this, preferring to say just "wine." But now, I think I was wrong, and I try to be as clear as I can on this. I don't know what's right.

A related question that I ask everyone, not an easy one. What is the future of wine?

The future is in those numbers I just mentioned. In 10-20 years, wine consumption will be at half of today's numbers. Hopefully, the quality will grow, and additives will disappear. In my dreams.

Another simple yet not easy question to conclude our dialogue: Are you happy?

Life seems to be moving very fast these days. The things that make me happy are always the same: children when they're not crying, wines when they ferment well and taste better, tennis when I make an Edberg volley, going to the beach when grapes aren't ripe in July, and truck drivers when they call before picking—this is the rarest thing...

Davide could surely add a lot, but speaking of new projects, he's opening a restaurant in the coming days, while making wine in Ibiza, while everything at Lammidia is ripening all at once, now... so, he'll tell you next time, haha.

I really appreciate you taking your time for this, Marco, with all that's on your plate. Thank you.

It’s been hard to find the time, but I'm really happy I did, and I thank you for this. It gave me the chance to take stock of the situation.

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