Eduardo Torres Acosta Pirrera Vino di Contrada 2022
Big thanks to Juliette Pope of Bowler Wine, whose diligent note taking helped flesh out this profile. The Quota N notes are verbatim her writing.
Eduardo Torres Acosta, a young winemaker from the , first began working with vines in where his father (a local postman) had a small of land. In 2012 Eduardo moved to , where he interned at Azienda Arianna Occhipinti (you may have heard of her). Soon thereafter he got a job as the at Passopisciaro, one of the pioneers of 's new wave of producers. Eduardo eventually decided to start his own project, and despite his "outsider" status, managed to rent several fine on from locals. Up until the 2017 , the grapes were and then trucked to Arianna Occhipinti’s in . Since the winemaking facility was not on , the wines were not allowed status and simply carry the designation. In 2018, Eduardo was able to convert a small garage into a winery but has decided to keep the wines .
Today Eduardo works eight small totaling 4.5 . The main production is a wine called "Versante Nord", produced in both white and red. Both wines are sources from six totalling less than two on the cooler, north-facing side of Mt. (hence the name) at ranging from 750 to 950 meters. In traditional style, he vineyards are mixed plantings of various local . The red grapes include a majority of with , , and others; the whites include , , , and . The is mainly , in some cases growing as bushes and in some on wires.
Two single vineyards are produced, "Pirrera" and "Quota N", the latter from a vineyard called Germana. "Pirrera" comes from a single located at 850 meters in altitude. The name of the vineyard, Pirrera, stems from the presence of stones which were extracted from a quarry during a lava flow in 1614. The vineyard had been largely abandoned and is slowly being restored by Eduardo. Lighter and fresher than the "Versante Nord" due to the higher altitude, this is a blend of 90% and 10% local varieties from vines of 50 plus years.
"Quota N" was first in the 2018 . Eduardo acquired this flat, half - , west -parcel of (hence piedi franco on label), 80-100-year-old, vines. It is surrounded by stone walls on very rocky, soils at the high of 1070 meters in the . The is named Germana for its historical family owner, but Eduardo was not allowed to use this and was also not premitted to use the Nave name because the site is too high to fall within Rosso rules. The local road is called strada quota nave and from this phrase, Eduardo pulled the "Quota N" name for the wine. The production is unavoidably miniscule, smaller even than the size would suggest, due to the naturally low of these old-timers as well as to holes where they have died or stopped producing.
