The Cantina Alchemica winery, which until a few years ago was known as RiLUCE, is a unique example of winemaking. Or rather, there are no boundaries or barriers that contain the enological possibilities and the expressiveness of taste. Giorgio Mercandelli is at the heart of the winery, and he is a courageous producer who has decided to cultivate vineyards that are over a hundred years old through a simple yet arduous approach. In the 1980s, after experimenting with organic agriculture on his father's farm and adopting the principles of biodynamic agriculture, he found his ideal dimension in the biotic philosophy. He became an interpreter of the grapes and the memory they preserve in their berries, and abandoned all use of any kind of substance in the various treatments. The alchemist is the leading figure in biotics. Through his work, he must bring the beauties of nature to light, making the invisible visible. That is how we get from light to wine. Through this perspective, we also rediscover the significance of origins, which are common to both man and nature. Giorgio Mercandelli's Cantina Alchemica is located in the town of Canneto Pavese, in the heart of the Recoaro Valley nature park. Here Giorgio and his partner Sonia carefully cultivate the hillsides on which Barbera, Croatina and Uva Rara vines are planted, while Riesling is used for the white wines. Between the rows of vines, simple actions and feelings are adopted in order to preserve the uncontaminated landscape in its most natural form, rendering it a mirror of man's conscience. Only the strength of the plant's life is rewarded, without affecting any process. This type of agriculture is best understood through the concept of homeostatic power. It is the same micro-organisms present in the subsoil that nourish and protect the vine, maintaining a condition of stability through a process of self-regulation, and responding to external changes in the environment. From perfectly healthy grapes, which preserve the harmony of their history, comes a pure liquid capable of going beyond all limits. The birth of the grapes comes from the same forces that transform man. Giorgio Mercandelli's objective is to obtain evocative results, which are capable of whispering gustatory pleasure to the taste and going beyond concepts of terroir, variety, conflicts and trends by stimulating the palate through the frequencies that nature has provided for the fluid itself. Giorgio Mercandelli's wines are liquid emotions and personal experiences, achieved through the alchemical process initiated within the grape cluster and brought to light by the biotic wine. They reflect the same forces that are imprinted in the memory of each individual vine. These wines can adapt to any food, without changing their nature and becoming food themselves. The fermentation of the grapes, harvested at a perfect degree of ripeness, takes place with only indigenous yeasts, inside inert containers, in order not to distort the memory of the fruit and the light enclosed within them. The macerations adopted are very long, lasting up to 120 days. After years of refinement in the bottle, the dynamic character is activated and the evolution of the memory inherent in the liquid emerges, regaining its lost colour and reassembling the features of its history. Time plays a leading role, as the ageing process lasts at least 5 to 7 years, with repeated tastings to assess when the bottles should be released on the market. Even the glass containers themselves have been specially designed to protect the contents from thermal, acoustic and vibrational shocks. Each label has a different colour and a letter that refers to a precise frequency of taste. The freedom of choice is yours. A bottle will be chosen according to which emotion one wishes to feel and experience, and each liquid, if listened to carefully, will be able to capture the palate, narrating the story from its memory. The aim is to go beyond organoleptic analysis, simply talking about feelings. Discovering the labels of this winery is an experience for the soul, known as synesthesia. It allows the taster to rediscover our own origins by going beyond the concepts of space and time, through universal expressions in which there is the same creative force of the world BIOTIC WINE "Wine fulfils the myth that unites science and conscience in the harmony of a single existence". Wine reflects the meaning of life that is realised in the world where the vintage is the result of gestures thoughts and feelings that reflect me in that time not of the meteorological weather which is reflected in the characters of the fruit. A universal substance that unites the life of the vineyard and that of its author in the harmony of a single bottle. A unique wine because it reflects its history in the taste of every conscience. "In the vineyard I live the meaning of life in the wine the sense of our own origin" I harvest when the plant has ripened in the fruit the image of life that only yeast can develop in wine because it has lived the same experience as the vineyard. Fermentation dissolves the matter of the grapes going back in time to recover their memories. The must passes through every nuance of the guesto until the origin of a new substance similar to the lymph that preserves the memory of the vineyard. A liquid memory devoid of any perfume or taste which is bottled pure to realise the taste of its own history in the darkness of each bottle. BIOTIC PHILOSOPHY (bios/life + tica/art = art of life) "We have the same origin as nature because the purpose of life is to discover who we are and the purpose of nature is to remind us. I cultivate a relationship with the vineyard that reflects my relationship with the world overcoming the limits of an agriculture based on the power of reactions with one founded on the harmony of relationships where even the life of a stone, a a flower or an insect is nothing more than a form of the same harmony that is reflected in the taste of each bottle. A wine that bears my name because it is born with me will die with me and I am the sole architect of its entire journey. No pruning because I don't want to hurt the plants no manure because the purity of the earth is the basis for the purity of the fruit no thinning because the plants know what they are doing no treatment because disease is only a reflection of my own consciousness. Only gestures thoughts and feelings that each plant fixes in the bunches like a memory of its relationship with the world where there is no better variety or a better territory because in nature there is no injustice. NATURALIST PERIOD (2003 - 2006) "Wine is not a product of nature but of man's nature". I cultivate the harmony of nature to find myself in the purity of a wine that reflects the taste of the same harmony that created us in the world. A universal wine that tells its story beyond my limits and beyond all my faults. In 2006 the wines were singing the same music of taste and I decided that they would become a cuvèe in the beauty of a single bottle. PURIST PERIOD (2007 - 2010) "A pure wine is made without any substance alter its natural path from the vineyard from the vineyard to the bottle. Plants have always impressed me for their ability to experience time and space as if they knew the mystery of the world. As a child I drank the sap of the vines to draw strength from it and now I live to grasp their mystery from the purity of the fruit. HARMONIC PERIOD (2011 - 2014) "I am inspired by the light of harmony that is reflected in the world to realise myself in a wine that brings back the same eternity in the taste of our time" As the wind lifted the cold of my feet to my face. I stopped under a weak ray of sun to look at the plants I had cut down and I knew that I would never prune again. that year or ever. From that moment on, my relationship with the vineyard that reflects my relationship with the world in the beauty of a wine that enhances every dish and which evolves with every taste because the bottles can stay open for days, months months and years. SYNTROPIC PERIOD (2013 - 2015) "A great wine makes the taste of an experience not an experience of taste. I live in the beauty of a wine that unites the past and the future in the taste of the present to connect the mind to the sense of our own origin.