Take an unsung viticultural zone, blend in a handful of obscure white grapes, while adopting an extravagant plan for rescuing agrarian ways—and one quickly realizes that going it alone is not the answer. Conceived amid the tumult of 2020, the inspiration behind the Lasorte Cuadra wine brand was taken from a set of problems in need of atypical solutions.
It took the disruptive forces of the global health emergency of the century to galvanize us both into action. Yet for all our sudden determination to save the family farm in order to convert a tradition of rural palmento cellar winemaking into a sustainable form of business, making that dream a reality would hinge on a combination of luck and community buy-in.
Having enlisted the help of local winegrower Donato Livrano, whose expert vine-pruning skills were needed at the farm, not to mention as a supplier of high-quality organic grapes for our first Valle d’Itria IGT field blend, the question of where to go with the 2020 harvest initially obscured all other preoccupations. And with projected volumes exceeding our tiny palmento capacities, we also had to come to terms with the scarcity of custom crush facilities in the area.
A patient search effort was inevitable. In fact, a thread of encrypted clues, dirt roads and neighborly words of advice would eventually land us in the nearby town of Cisternino, home to UPAL, Valle d’Itria’s only surviving wine cooperative—where a warm welcome by managing director and head enologist Angelo Soleti (whose penchant for experimentation fuels his infectious optimism about the uncharted potential of local varieties like Verdeca, Bianco d’Alessano and Maresco) was enough to set the wheels of Lasorte Cuadra in motion.
Rooted in crises triggered by hard economic times and social disparities, cooperative wine production was first introduced to this part of Puglia in the early 1930s, though it would take decades before the movement truly hit its stride with several cantine sociali concurrently orchestrating production from the sea of vines that once blanketed the entire Itria Valley. Nevertheless, by the 1990s fickle global markets and irrepressible demographic shifts had all but abandoned the small family farmers who populated the area by the legions, and of whom only faint legacies remain today. The existence of UPAL is a solemn testament to a bygone era, while still offering a lifeline to EU-protected wine appellations such as Locorotondo DOC, Martina Franca DOC and Valle d’Itria IGT.
Entering the realm of cooperative practices was an unexpected turn of events for Lasorte Cuadra, if a natural choice in hindsight. And while a strategic partnership with UPAL instantly equipped the new venture with valuable technical capabilities far outweighing the limited resources of a small startup, including a 50 hL silos of stainless steel cellar space, it is perhaps the knowledge of having joined the ranks of a greater cause which has lent our project the real sense of legitimacy it needed most.
