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Our small group of people begun taking shape 14 years ago, when our farm was a mare chaotic dream of young people from all over Italy, often at their first agricultural experiences, that found themselves living in Montalcino. Yes – live – not work! Perhaps this is, and has always been, our main drive: thinking and cultivating a very group-oriented socio-agricultural system, capable of inspiring and spreading like wildfire!
Much of our model and our products are the directhe result of the evolutionary process that the Podere Le Ripi team has undertaken over the years: from our team trips to France to the numerous bottles shared over the dining table. Passion and curiosity paved the way towards a contamination coming from wines and artisans, which ended up being a cornerstone of our working culture and our way of being.
We like to define ourselves as a community business and we believe our diversity to be one of our main values, Forever Young, a constant dynamic evolution, driven by our curious spirit and the desire to express ourselves through as many languages as possible, from agriculture, to winemaking, to sociality, honey, enthusiasm and everything that we have yet to discover.
A biodynamic winery in Montalcino that wants to go back to being a farm. For Francesco Illy this place represented a life’s dream, since 1998 when, while looking for a house in Tuscany, he came across this small corner of the world, at the time inhabited by a shepherd and his sheep. This is how it all started:
Francesco Illy
“I was a wine enthusiast, especially regarding Brunello, I used to think I was too old to be part of the wine world made of incredibly long waiting periods, but little by little curiosity pushed me to plant the first plot of vineyard and make the first Podere le Ripi wine during the harvest of 2003, and from then, I begun looking for ideas, meeting producers, sharing knowledge with people who eventually decided to join me in this adventure and started dreaming with me”
Making wine and taking care of our vineyards was the reason that brought all of us together, Podere le Ripi and its vineyard was the place where we met. And as it often happens to those who dream big, so much more was added to our journey. Today more than 30 people wake up every morning to take care of everything that represents our small ecosystem, where in addition to vines we raise animals and bees, look after vegetable gardens, where fruit and olive trees are cultivated, ideas take shape, but more than anything we take care of our working culture by trying to respect the ethical and social principles that have allowed us to grow so well and inspire others by always keeping Francesco’s words in mind:
“Curiosity leads to culture, leads to sensitivity, leads to enthusiasms, leads to love, leads to magic, leads to unconditional love. Because everybody feels the magic. Therefore, curiosity is a Universal gift”
