Fantini Group Vini SRL

Continuity at the Ortona table

The portfolio is held together by decision before it reaches glass. Valentino Sciotti, winemaker at Fantini Group Vini SRL in Ortona, works from a position where patronage, presidency, and the cellar program meet. His station is not described as a lone bench so much as a long table: Abruzzo fruit, partner wineries, labels with different weights, and a house name that has had to remain legible across markets. Fantini began in Ortona in 1994, on the Adriatic side of Abruzzo, with the inheritance of Farnese Vini behind it and a wider Fantini Group identity ahead. Sciotti’s work sits inside that continuity. He is named as president of Fantini Group and owner and patron at Vini Fantini, roles that put the method of the house in his hands even when the fruit comes through a broader network. The lineage published by the company is corporate rather than apprentice-based; what can be seen is the discipline of keeping Southern Italian wines, especially Abruzzo’s Montepulciano and Trebbiano, in a form that can travel without losing the sun, salt, and tannin of their origin.

Fruit from several southern registers

The Ortona headquarters operates as a producer and bottling facility for a large portfolio built from multiple Southern Italian regions. That scale matters here because Fantini’s stated ambition is not smallness, but a boutique style carried through a larger system. The group works with high-end, fruit-driven wines and draws on a network of boutique wineries, combining regional identity with centralized selection and release. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo remains one of the core red languages of the house: dark fruit, structure, and the clay, limestone, and sand associated with the surrounding area. Trebbiano gives the white program its cleaner line, while the wider range also includes rosé, sparkling wine, and blends. Edizione Cinque Autoctoni 23 2021 makes the house’s argument plainly, gathering five indigenous varieties into one bottling rather than treating local grapes as background material. Three Dreamers Montepulciano Appassimento, Edizione Collection, and Vanitá Sangiovese extend the same signature across different registers, from dried-grape density to a more polished collection style.

The cellar beside the Adriatic road

The place itself is quieter than the reach of the bottles suggests. Fantini Group Vini SRL is based at Via Luigi Dommarco 23 in Ortona, a coastal town in Chieti province where the Adriatic moderates heat and humidity around the vines of Abruzzo. The setting is modern and industrial: headquarters, bottling line, tasting room, and the practical architecture of a company built to move wine beyond its immediate coast. In the cellar and at the bench-side of blending, the work depends on separation as much as assembly, keeping Montepulciano, Trebbiano, Sangiovese, sparkling bases, and regional parcels distinct long enough for the final decision to matter. A guided tasting here has the feel of reading the group through its labels, not through a single vineyard walk.

A group name with a longer memory

Platinum Equity acquired the company in 2020, adding another layer to a house already shaped by rebranding, export, and regional partnership. Afterward, Ortona remained the address, Abruzzo the first vocabulary, and Sciotti’s name stayed attached to the direction of the group. The bottle rather than the scale remains Edizione Cinque Autoctoni 23 2021.