Fattoria Kappa

Four kilometers from the sea

Hand-picked fruit arrives in small crates for Stephan Klasmann, winemaker at Fattoria Kappa in Castellina Marittima, before it reaches the vibrating table. The gesture suits a place built on selection: fruit first, then vessel, then the patience of the cellar. Klasmann has made wine at this address since 1999, with the estate itself founded in 1999 by two Austrian wine enthusiasts who chose a hill at the border of Bolgheri and Maremma, about four kilometers from the Tyrrhenian Sea. His path into the work did not begin as a conventional cellar apprenticeship. It passed through writing, financial journalism, editorial building at Format, and later strategic communication, a sequence that sharpened his sense for timing, sequence, and what to leave out. At Fattoria Kappa, that eye becomes agricultural. The estate works biodynamically on a small scale, with sea-facing vineyards planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Syrah under Toscana IGT. The address is Castellina Marittima, twenty kilometers north of Bolgheri and outside the DOC boundary, but the soils carry the same marine memory: minerals, iron ore, shell limestone, alluvial sand, and fossil deposits under the vines.

Whole berries, tonneaux, and steel

The method at Fattoria Kappa begins before the cellar, in the choice to keep tractors away from the alluvial soils and work with horses where compaction would cost the vineyard its structure. Harvest moves by hand, in small crates, then through selection on a vibrating table. For Lambda Rosso Toscana IGT 2023, the cellar keeps 20% of the grapes whole and ferments the remaining 80% in the traditional way, a split that gives the cuvée both grip and lift without turning the wine into a technical exercise. Lambda then rests for 12 months in 500-liter used tonneaux and steel tanks, without fining or filtration. Kappa Rosso Toscana IGT moves differently: 14 months in wooden barrels, drawn from 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Cabernet Franc, 30% Syrah, 10% Petit Verdot, and 5% Merlot, with annual production around 18,000 bottles. Kappa Essenza narrows the lens to 100% Cabernet Franc and 18 months of wooden barrel maturation, released only in exceptional years. The house holds an award, with choices of grape, vessel, and time.

A cellar set by wind and fossil soil

The room at Fattoria Kappa stays close to the vineyard rather than apart from it. The work carries in from sea-facing rows, through crates and selection, into a cellar where steel, used tonneaux, and wooden barrels each have a defined station. This is Bolgheri-Maremma borderland rather than polished estate theater: quiet, mineral, and exposed to the sea air that marks the fruit before fermentation begins. The tasting room belongs to that same scale, intimate enough that the portfolio reads as a set of decisions rather than a catalogue. Cabernet Franc has a particular hold here, helped by day-night temperature shifts from the Tyrrhenian side. When Fattoria Kappa ends on a single variety, it does so in Kappa Essenza.