Tenuta Bellafonte
Born from a fairytale idea of its founder Peter Heilbron, Tenuta Bellafonte (the Italian translation of the German surname Heilbron) today represents one of the most surprising wineries in the Montefalco area. Located near the delightful village of Torre del Colle, the estate's lands extend over 20 hectares in a picturesque territory that, among hills and knolls, orderly vineyards and unruly olive groves, woods and orchards, constitutes a wonderful and evocative natural setting. The vineyards, all of Sagrantino, rest on a stubborn soil that alternates clay with rocky formations and cover a total area of 7 hectares situated at about 300 m above sea level. In this breathtaking context stands the beautiful winery, designed according to ancient rules but also with an eye towards energy saving and low environmental impact: it is indeed completely underground, in direct contact with the rock, equipped with an air circulation system, photovoltaic panels, and a biomass boiler that utilizes pruning residues.
The beautiful Sagrantino vines (recognizable in autumn by the red color of the leaves) are nurtured with manure from selected stables; pruning, leaf thinning, and thinning occur regularly, in order to aerate the plant and the soil and thus avoid the use of chemical herbicides. The grapes are then hand-picked into small boxes and then transferred, after being destemmed (not crushed), into fermentation tanks, keeping the berries intact. Fermentation occurs naturally, without the addition of yeasts, and lasts about two weeks, accompanied by skin maceration. After a few weeks of rest, the wine is placed in large Slavonian oak barrels for aging of at least 40 months. During this process, the wine is racked and monitored regularly, before being bottled without filtration.
Thanks to these non-invasive processes and long refinements, the bottles that come out of Tenuta Bellafonte contain an astonishing wine, endowed with extraordinary expressive naturalness and rare elegance. With the quality of its products, Heilbron is showing local producers a new way of operating that combines the ancient and the modern and, above all, a surprising and visionary stylistic path.
Born from a fairytale idea of its founder Peter Heilbron, Tenuta Bellafonte (the Italian translation of the German surname Heilbron) today represents one of the most surprising wineries in the Montefalco area. Located near the delightful village of Torre del Colle, the estate's lands extend over 20 hectares in a picturesque territory that, among hills and knolls, orderly vineyards and unruly olive groves, woods and orchards, constitutes a wonderful and evocative natural setting. The vineyards, all of Sagrantino, rest on a stubborn soil that alternates clay with rocky formations and cover a total area of 7 hectares situated at about 300 m above sea level. In this breathtaking context stands the beautiful winery, designed according to ancient rules but also with an eye towards energy saving and low environmental impact: it is indeed completely underground, in direct contact with the rock, equipped with an air circulation system, photovoltaic panels, and a biomass boiler that utilizes pruning residues.
The beautiful Sagrantino vines (recognizable in autumn by the red color of the leaves) are nurtured with manure from selected stables; pruning, leaf thinning, and thinning occur regularly, in order to aerate the plant and the soil and thus avoid the use of chemical herbicides. The grapes are then hand-picked into small boxes and then transferred, after being destemmed (not crushed), into fermentation tanks, keeping the berries intact. Fermentation occurs naturally, without the addition of yeasts, and lasts about two weeks, accompanied by skin maceration. After a few weeks of rest, the wine is placed in large Slavonian oak barrels for aging of at least 40 months. During this process, the wine is racked and monitored regularly, before being bottled without filtration.
Thanks to these non-invasive processes and long refinements, the bottles that come out of Tenuta Bellafonte contain an astonishing wine, endowed with extraordinary expressive naturalness and rare elegance. With the quality of its products, Heilbron is showing local producers a new way of operating that combines the ancient and the modern and, above all, a surprising and visionary stylistic path.
