There are places you can only truly understand when someone tells you how they were first imagined.
Because a vineyard, long before it becomes wine, is always an act of faith. It is the gesture of someone who looks at a silent hillside and can already picture the rows of vines, or someone who gazes out at the sea and imagines that, one day, that breeze will become part of the character of a glass of wine. It is a promise made to time.
During my visit to Torre Civette, I described what I found in the wines: a young coastal Maremma already capable of speaking with a remarkably distinctive voice. Behind that voice, however, is someone who chose to listen to it long before it truly existed.
Arianna Balducci, CEO of the estate, is one of those people who speak not about achievements, but about journeys. In her words, wine becomes the natural fulfillment of a vision that began many years earlier, when that hillside was little more than land, olive trees, and an open horizon overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The rest was accomplished through patience, courage, and the belief that time is not an obstacle, but the most precious of allies.
I asked her four questions to explore the heart of this project—not simply to talk about wine, but about everything that happens before a bottle comes into being: the moment when a place ceases to be just a landscape and becomes a dream waiting to be built.
Torre Civette is still a very young winery, yet the feeling is that you are not simply producing wine here—you are building an identity. When did you realize these lands had the potential to become something truly special?
Torre Civette is a dream that is gradually becoming reality. I arrived here eleven years ago, and shortly afterward we began talking about the wine project. Like a child, I watched it being born and taking its first steps. The moment I truly realized it could become something extraordinary came during a site inspection with our technical team on the Carpineto hillside. There were a series of terraces framed by centuries-old olive trees, all covered in wild grass. Once the area had been cleared, I turned toward the south and saw the sea stretching all the way to the port of Punta Ala.
At that moment, I knew I was standing in a magical place, where anything could become possible.
Your vineyards are still very young, which makes the project both fascinating and courageous. In a market that demands immediate results, how difficult is it to embrace time as an ally rather than an obstacle?
The land has taught me one lesson above all others: patience. Wine is patience, with its own natural cycles. In a world driven by haste, working the land brings you back to your roots and teaches you how to wait. Time can only be an ally if you learn to embrace it. We cannot expect immediate results from wine; we have to walk alongside it, one step at a time.
In your wines I sensed a very distinctive signature: balsamic freshness, a Mediterranean character, and the savory imprint of the coast. How much of that is the result of winemaking choices, and how much is simply the pure voice of Scarlino’s terroir?
Above all, it is the authentic expression of Scarlino’s extraordinary terroir. The sea, with its vastness, amplifies and reflects the sunlight; then there is the sea breeze, the Mediterranean scrubland, and the natural balance of this unique place. All these elements reach their fullest expression through the winemaking interpretation of Dr. Cotarella.
If you were to imagine Torre Civette ten or fifteen years from now, what would you most like people to say about this estate and its wines?
