La Distesa - Corrado Dottori
La Distesa is a rural community situated in the inland area of Le Marche and extended over two country estates in the municipality of Cupramontana, in the province of Ancona. The prevailing activity is the cultivation of grapevines for the production of high quality natural wines, but the farm consists also of olive trees, arable land, fodder and forest. Organic agricultural practices are used in all farm activities, certified by CCPB.
We consider ourselves custodians of this natural environment, the agricultural landscape of Le Marche: a living organism generated by the continuous and secular work of man. In addition to agricultural production La Distesa also offers the opportunity to stay at the family agriturismo in the Esinante district.
To be winegrowers for us means first and foremost to tell the story of the territory, with its thousand complexities, and to follow the seasons, with their evolutions that are always different. For this we have chosen an organic method of cultivation, to express without distorting that which the earth brings to us, naturally.
For years we have been working in the vineyards, seeking to safeguard and allow biodiversity to express itself fully, sowing between rows fava, vetch, peas, alfalfa and allowing wild plants to flourish.
We respect the physiology of the vine: we do not hedge, we prune respecting the natural propensity to ramification, we do not defoliate, we do not work the soil under the vines other than squashing with our feet or cutting back manually weeds in excess. We do not fertilize, we spray only with sulfur and small doses of copper. We use tea preparations of nettles and horsetail (equisetum); in autumn and in spring we spray the biodynamic preparation 500 (cow horn manure) and Fladen (Maria Thun of the Foundation Le Madri).
On our estate there is never monoculture: woods, hedges, trees, reeds, grass alternating with arable crops (where the right rotation and light processing maintain fertility), olive groves (that are never treated) and vineyards.
We view agriculture as a living ecosystem, balanced between the energy of the wild and the force of man