Ceraudo

One name held to Contrada Dattilo

Roberto Ceraudo keeps his hands on Val di Neto fruit as winemaker at Ceraudo in Strongoli Marina, where the work begins in the fields around Contrada Dattilo. His place here is not a recent appointment. Ownership has been with him since 1973, and the estate itself opened in 1987 inside a restored 17th-century rural hamlet, a form of continuity that gives the wine program its frame before any label is poured. The estate describes its philosophy as organic, and the chronology matters: Ceraudo has produced organic wines since 1990, early enough for the choice to read less like positioning than conviction. The line he gives for the work is direct, “A vision and a desire that drives me since I was a child.” Another sentence puts the apprenticeship closer to the ground: “When everyone was going to the beach in summer, I was here working.” That is the register of the place, one family name attached to one Calabrian holding, with the long way measured in seasons rather than announcements.

Nine Val di Neto wines from a mixed farm

The cellar works from an estate of 60 hectares, with 20 hectares of vineyards set among 37 hectares of olive groves and 3 hectares of citrus orchards. That mix is part of the method, not scenery added after the fact. The vineyard ground carries Gaglioppo, Greco Bianco, Pecorello, Magliocco, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, with the wines released under the Val di Neto appellation across still reds, whites, rosé and sparkling bottlings. Ceraudo produces about 70,000 bottles per year across nine wines, a scale large enough to give the program breadth and small enough for the family estate to remain legible in each cuvée. Named bottles tied to Roberto Ceraudo include Petelia Bianco 2022, Petelia White 2019 and Grayasusi Etichetta Rame Rosato Val di Neto IGT. The house makes the portfolio through a limited register rather than a crowded one; identity sits in repetition, vintage after vintage, from native grapes and selected international plantings in the same Calabrian basin.

The cellar beside olive and citrus

The estate sits in the Dattilo hamlet outside Strongoli Marina, held between vineyard rows, olive trees and citrus. The cellar belongs to a larger agricultural house, with an agriturismo and restaurant on the property, but the room’s pace stays quiet: guided tastings, cellar visits and food pairings move through the same working material that surrounds the buildings. Rustic stone and contemporary rooms meet without forcing the old hamlet into display. The useful texture is agricultural. Grapes come from the surrounding hectares; olive and citrus groves remain in view; the Ionian coast sits near enough to shape the sense of the place. When the tasting room turns to the glass, it is not introducing a detached product. It is returning to Dattilo.