Castel Noha - Aziende Agricole Cirulli

From laboratory habit to the cellar

The cellar decisions begin with observation; Valentino Cirulli, winemaker and owner at Castel Noha - Aziende Agricole Cirulli in Ficulle, carries that habit into the estate’s daily work. Before he took the winemaking brief here, Cirulli worked as a researcher at Stazione di Chimica Agraria in Rome and at Istituto Sperimentale per l'Enologia in Asti. That path matters in a cellar where tradition is not treated as a costume. It gives the old family line a technical spine.

Since 2007, Cirulli has run CastelNoha as both maker and owner. The Cirulli name reaches back to grape growing in 1861, first in Abruzzo, before the family expanded its agricultural work into Umbria and Lazio. In Ficulle, the estate’s formal foundation belongs to Giuseppe Cirulli, who established the winery in 1980 and set the frame for a modern Umbrian house with a family memory behind it. Valentino’s place at the bench is therefore not a clean break from the predecessor, but an inheritance worked with instruments, tasting, and restraint.

Tufo, Umbrian whites, and a measured hand

The work here turns on local ground and a portfolio built around still red, still white, and sparkling wines under the Umbria IGT frame. Around Ficulle, near Orvieto, tufo gives the vineyard a porous volcanic base, draining quickly while holding enough moisture for the vine through the dry part of the season. Nearby Lake Corbara, Lake Bolsena, and the Paglia and Tevere river valleys shape the growing conditions around the hillsides, slowing the rush toward harvest and giving the white grapes room to carry freshness.

Castel Noha’s language is especially clear in Grechetto, Pecorino, and Passerina, with Sangiovese entering the red side of the cellar. The house’s named wines include 1861 San Valentino, Ginepreta, Sediana, Hédoné, and Ritorto. The barrel cellar, the barricaia, is part of the visitor’s route and part of the method: reds rest in oak, with both French and Italian barrels associated with the program.

A tasting room inside the village grain

The winery sits in the medieval hilltown fabric of Ficulle, not apart from it. Its indoor spaces and outdoor areas are arranged for guided tastings, food pairings, and private tastings, with the room moving at the pace of a rural Umbrian estate rather than a counter built for turnover. The cellar, the tasting room, and the vines are close enough in spirit that the glass does not feel detached from the work that made it.

Noise stays low here. That matters. In a quiet room, a pour of Grechetto or a structured red from the barrel program can hold attention without performance; the local food alongside it does not need to explain the territory twice. The estate presents its hospitality through calm, nature, and the stories attached to the wines, with village stone, outdoor air, the barricaia, and Cirulli’s hand still on Castel Noha.