Torrevento

The history of the Torrenvento Winery begins in the heart of the Alta Murgia National Park, Italy’s first landscape park. A land dominated by the inseparable bond between humans and nature, where human activity and the environment are perfectly united with tradition. Here, in 1400, a Benedictine monastery was built entirely of stone in the “Torre del Vento” (Tower of the Wind) district.

The history of Torrevento

Torre del Vento is a name that would shape the history of the Torrenvento Winery, a story that begins in 1913, when Francesco Liantonio (grandfather of his namesake Francesco, current president of the company Torrenvento Ltd.) decided, at not quite 16 years of age, to board the ship “Hamburg” bound for New York in search of fortune.

In 1923, ten years after his arrival in America, Francesco Liantonio made a fortune thanks to an ice factory and returned with the fruits of his hard work to his beloved Apulia, where in the town of Palo del Colle (Staff on the Hill) he fulfilled his dream: the production and trade of extra virgin olive oil and winemaking.

In 1948 the Liantonio family acquired, in the Torrevento district, right at the foot of the famous Castel del Monte, the old Benedictine monastery with the surrounding 57 hectares of vineyards. Two years later, Gaetano Liantonio inherited the estate, renovated it and continued production in the form of a winery called Vinicola Torrevento (Torrevento Winery). Finally, in 1989, together with Francesco Liantonio (current president and CEO), he merged it into a company, Torrevento SRL.

Torrevento – the vineyards and the terroir

With Torrevento we are in the wildest and most rugged part of Apulia. Here, limestone rocks form the Murge plateau, whose name derives from the Latin word Murex, meaning sharp stone. Humps and karst depressions alternate with flat stretches of land, where the stony soil, made cultivable through human ingenuity, has made Apulian crops what they are today – unique and special in taste and quality.

Torrevento is located in the northernmost part of the Murgia, in the areas of the Apulian DOC district that takes its name from Frederick II’s magnificent estate: “Castel del Monte”. This is a wild territory with a typically Mediterranean climate, where hot, dry summers alternate with long, cool winters, which in the northern part are often accompanied by snowfall. Rainfall, very rare in summer, is abundant in late autumn.

Grape varieties of Torrevento

In the northern part of Apulia the finest local grape varieties are cultivated:

• Nero di Troia
• Bombino Nero
• Bombino Bianco
• Moscato Reale
• Pampanuto
• Aglianico

They guarantee wines with a full bouquet, spicy aromas and full flavor.

The vineyards at the foot of Castel del Monte

In the Torrevento vineyards at the foot of Castel del Monte, in the middle of the Alta Murgia, stony soils are combined with natural vegetation interspersed with strips of cultivated fields. The characteristics of the soil here are particularly suitable for the cultivation of the native Nero di Troia grape variety, from which Torrevento produces well-structured wines with a dominant bouquet of red fruits, wood, roses and herbs. These wines are well suited to long aging. Aglianico is also widespread in this area. It is a grape variety of medium vigor, with medium-sized, cylindrical or conical clusters, often winged.

At Torrevento, Aglianico produces wines of more or less intense red color with violet reflections, good aromatic intensity, cherry and plum aromas, and herbaceous tobacco notes. On the palate it is fresh in acidity, spicy, marked by firm tannins and wonderfully full-bodied.