Azienda Agricola Palazzone

Giovanni Dubini begins his story: “2,500 years ago, the Etruscans dug deep into the local “Tufo” and created the first temperature-controlled cellars in the world!” His passion and enthusiasm are remarkable, as are his good-natured and easygoing manner.

Giovanni’s father bought the property in 1968: the family came to the area to vacation, fell in love, and finally planted roots - literally. No vines existed; the winery was conceived and developed completely from scratch. Currently 25 hectares of vines cover the estate.

The quality of Dubini’s output is legendary, the white wines being some of the most age-worthy in all of Italy. Giovanni keeps it simple, touching as little as possible during the process of growing and making his wines. In fact, all his wines are organically produced, with no chemical fertilizers or pesticides whatsoever.

Giovanni continues the story: “We started making wine about forty years ago; at that time the wine was made for the family and friends; the masters were the farmers of the farm that were handed down traditions and knowledge from afar. The wine was organic, sustainable, not by choice but by mere custom. Same technique for both the white wine and the red: the “cask”, the fermentation on the skins, the pressing by hand, the chestnut barrels (wood from our forests)."

Addendum February 2019

There was a time when the name “Orvieto” was one of the most famous in Italian wine…when the appellation evoked crisp, food friendly, delicious white wines from the area surrounding the evocative, eponymous hilltop town in Umbria. Unfortunately, many large wineries, even from outside even the region of Umbria, have capitalized on the reputation of Orvieto for many decades, and in the process have stolen not only the identify of this noble region but its reputation for quality as well. 

A few folks have been fighting quietly ever since to restore Orvieto’s once-great reputation. Leading that fight is our friend Giovanni Dubini, proprietor of the Palazzone estate. Giovanni is a visionary, a leader, a practical and well-known proponent of organic farming and less-is-more tactics in the cellar. He is also well known as one of the top specialists for white wine in all of Italy. His wines have become justly famous, even as unlucky Orvieto has continued to tread water in a sea of mediocre wine. 

Giovanni is a believer in his territory and his terroir. His passion is rooted in Orvieto’s history. Indeed Giovanni does not consider “Musco” - a skin-fermented (in the old way) wine produced in an ancient Etruscan cave on a hillside of his property, produced entirely by hand with no electricity or external water supply, in chestnut barrels, with no additives of any sort - Giovanni does not consider Musco a “Natural” wine but merely a “Traditional” wine. As we said - practical. 

To understand these wines one can start with the simplest - Vignarco, and proceed to Terre Vineate and Campo del Guardiano and finally to Musco. Along the way, you’ll see a progression of complexity, depth and balance, age-worthiness, and, in the end, a wine - Musco - that is a monument to all that Orvieto was, and all that it can be. And in the process, it is important to keep the name Giovanni Dubini at the forefront of the conversation.

Palazzone estate is located in frazzione Rocca Ripesena. The wines are made from Procanico, Grechetto, Malvasia, Verdello, Drupeggio. Vineyards farmed organically, planted on ancient volcanic tuff overlain with marly, clay and calcareous stone. Pietro Dubini is Giovanni’s son and enthusiastic eventual successor. The wines are wonderful, balanced, nuanced, age-worthy, food friendly.