ME, ALESSANDRO FILIPPI

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My childhood in the family business in contact with the vine.

I, Alessandro Filippi, was born of a family of winemakers for generations. At the age of seven or eight I began to make wine with my father. And over the years a bit ‘for fun’, a little out of curiosity and a little ‘for passion’ I began to vinify every single vineyard of the company. The family business is very large and my curiosity was to take the grapes from each vineyard, vinify and taste to understand how the taste varied from area to area. In the Soave region we have only the Garganega, a vine that, however, depending on the area gave different expressions.

I then studied, I attended the schools of oenology, but always working in the vineyard. My father passed away when I was still young, so I took over the company at about twenty years of age, as soon as the farmer’s school was over. However, I immediately realized that, despite the school, I did not know anything, I did not have the skills to manage the company.

To take over the family winery, I began to seriously study and specialize.

I began to study alone by reading books on oenology and viticulture. I studied in the evening and during the day I applied the things I was studying. At a certain point I said to myself: Why don’t I take the specialization in viticulture and oenology, since I am already studying? I did the examinations of the specific subjects of oenology and viticulture, which in my diploma of general orientation of agriculture were not foreseen, to the specialization at the Enological school of Conegliano, and I passed. I then took the diploma of a private-sector enologist, also with success.

At that point I said to myself: let’s also do the university! And I enrolled in the oenology course. My strength was always to be able to try the techniques I was learning. I studied at university and at home I vinified. My cellar had become my laboratory. In each carboy the wine was made according to different techniques.

At university I met Professor Roberto Ferrarini, with whom, after the thesis, I worked both in the field of research and in the field of wine consulting and from which I learned a lot.

Applying to the letter all that I was studying the quality of the wine was getting worse.

I also made great mistakes with the study. In the past the company had been managed with natural methods, because, also because of my father’s death, we had neglected the farm, leaving the vineyard impoverished. When I intervened with the intention of restoring the levels of the past, I did it as they had taught me. I then started using herbicides, which used to be very little before, I started to do synthetic chemistry, I started using chemical fertilizers, systemic treatments, I leveled land, I removed old vines and planted new plants. And there I realized that the vineyards were struggling to grow and, more seriously, the wines lost more and more the taste that I was used to taste.

At that point I approached organic farming and the movement of natural wines. I tried the techniques of organic agriculture, copper, sulfur, covering products no longer systemic, no more herbicides. But the plants did not want to know how to recover. So I switched to biodynamics without, however, obtaining short-term results.

The turning point, thanks to the French agronomists and the theory of light and carbon.

One day I met French agronomists who showed me some methods that derive from the simple observation of nature. These Frenchmen told me: look how the wood works, look at the soil rich in plant carbon and microorganisms. And so I did.

Thanks to them I approached the techniques aimed at restoring those natural organic substances and rebalancing the relationship between carbon and nitrogen in favor of the former. I started making compost of vegetable origin, I started making herbal teas for foliar nutrition and I started to multiply the microorganisms of the wood. Within a few months I saw a crazy answer and I told myself: this is my way!

The new adventure in Sicily and the birth of Vini di Luce.

I left the company, which remained with my brother, and I started a new business from Sicily, with the Ericina winery. It was a winery that made cheap wine, but the business was not going well. They had therefore decided to invest in a bottling cellar and in a warehouse. They wanted to focus on bottled wine and then I advised him to take the path of organic given of the particular favorable environmental condition of Sicily.

From there I began to apply and refine the new techniques I had learned. I even started studying quantum physics and geobiology. I started using thin energy measurement techniques, such as the Lecher antenna, and all the tools needed to increase the ability to perceive energy. I attempted to bring together the official scientific part and the unrecognized theories, through trials and confirmations in everyday practice.

From the Ericina project and my consultancy activity in other Italian wineries, the Vini di Luce project was born in 2012. In 2015, the Cooperativa Vino Nuovo was founded with the aim of gathering and organizing the projects started with Cantina Ericina and then interrupted together with other companies that had developed following my ideas.

What is a “vitologist”.

I love to call myself “Vitologist” as well as winemaker. This is because in my work, in addition to trying to make a good wine, I put that something more. My wine must also be bioavailable, therapeutic, vital! Many foods before, they were industrialized, our body digested them and easily integrated, with the maximum assimilation of nutrients. Through the Light and Carbon Farming and the Vini di Luce method, wines and products of the earth return to this property. The Vitologist is “the one who treats the art of bringing life from the vine”, that is to preserve the vital energy of the plant up to the bottle and to your glass.