Azienda Agricola I Luoghi

Vineyard decisions carried into the cellar

The first vine rows went into Campo al Capriolo in 2000, and Stefano Granata, winemaker at Azienda Agricola I Luoghi in Castagnetto Carducci, still works from that original decision. The estate sits outside Castagneto Carducci, within the Bolgheri district, where Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot are the working materials. Granata’s own account of the beginning is direct: “Our winemaking adventure began in 2000.” The house also gives its point of departure as “the shared desire to create a vineyard and produce a wine that represented the Bolgheri territory, without compromise, reflecting our character.” That sentence matters because it sets the scale of the work. I Luoghi is not built as a broad portfolio exercise. It is a small family-run Bolgheri estate, about 4-5 hectares of vineyards, with limited annual production around 14,000 bottles. The discipline is continuity: the same ground, the same varieties, the same attention to the shape of the wine before it reaches bottle.

Cabernet through steel, wood and time

The cellar work follows the estate’s Cabernet-based focus without overcomplicating the hand. I Luoghi works with estate-grown fruit, keeping control of the chain from vine to fermentation. Steel tanks give the cellar a means of holding temperature with precision, while extended maceration builds color and structure from the skins. The wines then move through wood aging, with a minimum of 24 months stated for the reserve level. Those choices give the Bolgheri DOC reds their frame: fruit grown in the Campo al Capriolo area, fermented for clarity and structure, then held long enough for texture to gather. Granata’s signature bottlings, Podere Ritorti, Campo al Fico, Sassosolo, Fuorisolco and Franco, mark different points in the same method. Sassosolo and Campo al Fico are often the names a visitor meets first, because they carry the estate’s limited-production Cabernet voice in a direct way. The production philosophy is sustainable, and at this scale that word has a practical meaning: vineyard decisions remain visible in the glass because there is little distance between the rows, the cellar and the person making the call.

A quiet estate among vines and olive groves

The place keeps its work close to the countryside. I Luoghi stands in Campo al Capriolo, outside Castagneto Carducci, surrounded by vineyards and olive groves rather than by the formal architecture of a large tasting room. The cellar, the vineyard and the tasting spaces sit in easy relation to one another, so a guided visit can move from the rows to the glass without turning the estate into theatre. The pace is quiet. Tastings and al fresco meals happen among the vines, with Bolgheri reds poured near the ground that shaped them. That intimacy is part of the craft here, not an accessory to it. A small estate can reveal where the wine changes hands: from pruning decisions to steel, from wood to bottle, from the cellar to the table. Campo al Fico remains on the bottle rather than the claim.