VALUES
“I was born and have lived in this farm that has been handed down for eight generations. My childhood and adolescence in contact with nature created an unbreakable bond with it. I wish all young people the development of this bond at the right age because I am convinced that it lasts a lifetime.”
Living nature, caring for it, respecting and representing it – these are the primary and essential values on which Giancarlo Ceci’s winery and farm are founded.
The love for the land goes hand in hand with the continuous search for balance between the soil and the surrounding environment. This means going back to one’s origins, rediscovering one’s roots and uncovering the methods of one’s fathers, who cultivated the land by entering into symbiosis with nature itself never forcing it but always listening to and understanding it. This is what the Giancarlo Ceci farm has been lovingly doing since 1988.
SUSTAINABILITY
With total respect for nature and its resources, the farm has always been committed to sustainable practices, well aware of its responsibility towards the planet.
Agricultural products are grown according to organic farming and biodynamic farming methods, by virtue of a sound environmental ethic.
The farm also produces clean energy. Indeed, it has had a solar energy plant (with an annual production of 2 million kW) since 2010.
During an entire production cycle, the company consumes only half of the energy it produces.
Following a careful and scrupulous analysis conducted by experts, in 2020 the Giancarlo Ceci farm and winery reached an important milestone: the Carbon Footprint certification, an environmental sustainability indicator that measures the CO2 emissions generated by various activities.
This study showed that all cultivation, processing and transformation activities of agricultural products have a carbon-neutral balance. One of the farm’s major goals for the future is to reduce year on year the CO2 emissions from the distribution and marketing of the products themselves, achieving Carbon Neutrality.
The practices of biodynamic agriculture, the production of clean energy, the presence of 100 hectares of olive groves and more than 30 hectares of oak forest in the heart of farm as well as the limited use of plastic and reduced consumption are all preponderant factors that help to offset the emissions resulting from the farm’s activities.
BIODYNAMIC FARMING
BIODYNAMIC FARMING
Giancarlo Ceci winery and farm choose to work with nature in a way that respects and regenerates the land, reinforcing the health of the soil and its fertility and supporting and protecting wildlife and local biodiversity. In fact, the company has been cultivating and caring for its land according to the principles of biodynamic agriculture since 2011, on the strength of an already exceptionally well-established organic farming technique. Working the land according to the methods of biodynamics means respecting the rhythms and cycles of Nature and the succession of seasons and time, in order to achieve unequivocal harmony in the cultivated fields. All agricultural activities are carried out in a manner that respects and promotes the vitality of the land, enhancing its typicality.
In accordance with the biodynamic philosophy, Giancarlo Ceci’s farm is equipped with a herd of Podolic cows in a semi-wild state.
The over 30 cows close the ‘cycle’: they feed on the farm’s organic waste, in turn providing valuable fertiliser used to revitalise the soil.
So, it all comes down to circularity. Each by-product in fact returns to the farm’s life cycle. Diversification (grapes, olives, tomatoes, vegetables, animals) is the result of an objective that marks the vocation of the land and the environment, as well as the farm’s agricultural philosophy.
Dynamising the land, making it vital as if it were a living organism – all to protect biodiversity. On Giancarlo Ceci’s farm, even cultivated nature becomes an oasis of refuge for wildlife. In the soil harbours a unique wealth of plant species that have been preserved in it unharmed and that cyclically re-emerge with the changing seasons. They represent an immense value that culminates during the spring when biodiversity is in full blast.
Cultivating according to biodynamic methods for Giancarlo Ceci’s farm means aiming to achieve the best possible health of the soil and consequently, of the agricultural products. The result is a balance that can easily be found in Giancarlo Ceci’s products, from wines to oil, from sauces to vegetables.
Biodynamic agriculture is a symbiotic way of working, experiencing the land and nature. It represents the best for the future not only of nature and the planet but also of man himself.
CERTIFICATION
As proof of the importance that quality plays within the production cycles, the company has adopted several quality certifications. In addition to the control carried out by ICEA on everything related to organic agricultural production standards, numerous Italian and international bodies control and certify the quality of production from the moment of transplanting to sale to the end customer.
The international Demeter label guarantees worldwide the correct application of biodynamic principles to crops and food production.
