Face to face with Vittorio Moretti and Attilio Scienza, in the ancient Sella&Mosca estate

For today's appointment of “The Italian Wine Podcast” we are in Sardinia, inside the ancient wine estate of Sella&Mosca. Here we meet Vittorio Moretti and Professor Attilio Scienza: friends for more than forty years, the two have met thanks to their common passion for enology, which still binds them and leads them to investigate the Sardinian territory of Alghero, the DOCG of Gallura and the smallest portion of the Carignano del Sulcis grape variety, to make the estate's wines increasingly competitive at quality level.

Vittorio, Attilio: would you like to tell us more about your friendship?

Professor Scienza worked at the University of Milan, with whom we collaborated: I met him there, and for me he has always been the greatest connoisseur of vineyards in Italy, today even more than before. My daughter and many of my collaborators studied with him, but I don't think he had students who reached the same level of experience

Ours is both a friendship and a working collaboration, the professor continues.
I was helping to make the implants and find the best genetic material, the rootstocks, the clones. The most important moment for me was the zoning in Franciacorta, one of the first in our territory. We have tried to know the specificities of each terroir to direct the production of the most suitable bunches of grapes to the individual sub-areas, then continuing to carry out the same investigations for Petra and the other estates. To make a mass selection of Merlot, we even went to France, to the Pomerol wine-growing region, where Pétrus is produced: no one in

Have there been other significant episodes in your friendship?

We've done so many things, it's hard to choose one! All the vineyards we have come from the work of Attilio, Bellavista, Petra, La Badiola, until we arrived here, in Sella&Mosca, where perhaps the situation is more complex

This company was founded at the end of the 19th century, thanks to the interest of two Piedmontese people,” continues Professor Scienza. Until recently, we focused on improving efficiency and reducing costs, we didn't want special or qualitatively superb wines: the commercial moment was different, and so were people's tastes. Today, the operation that is being carried out is aimed at recovering quality, which is based on a few local varieties. It is necessary to develop a modern oenology, also made of sparkling wines, of the classical method, for which an excellent base is needed; the goal for the coming years is to produce Vermentino and Cannonau with potential, studying the geography of the place

This is because there were no fine geological maps before your intervention, right?

Vittorio did the analysis for the first 70 hectares, slowly that study will expand to discover the composition of the soil, where rocks of marine origin and volcanic corners intertwine, where every peculiarity must be functional to find the most suitable rootstocks and clones — the Sardinian ones, the French ones from Corsica, those from the Tyrrhenian Sea. We would like to plant self-sufficient vines, which hardly need irrigation: the operations we are carrying out in this regard are innovative, they are not

From your story we understand that this modernization process is a significant challenge: what makes you persevere in carrying it forward?

I embarked on this new path at 75, Vittorio says, but I had already visited the company 30 years ago. Since then it has remained in my heart and I had the desire to invest in these lands that many define as “lost”: the versatility of the place is maximum, and the production is high in quantity. Our other brands — Bellavista, Contadi Castaldi, Petra — make small, niche numbers: we needed a more inclusive product for

Stevie Kim