wine and environment
Cuore Verde: the one-of-a-kind Roberto Angelini has an excellent winery
Roberto Angelini is one-of-a-kind and his winery is excellent. Augusto Antonelli Franceschini, at the helm of the Cuore Verde organic farm in Spello, has no doubts: he has called the Enoteca Properzio “probably the best in Italy”.
“Both Roberto and I are from Spello, then for a while he moved to Turin. We had a great opportunity to start our professional relationship at the end of the 1990s, on the occasion of the ‘Slow Food’ event” organized in the Piedmontese city. “My wife went there to present our risina beans and Roberto was also there. He has always focused on excellent products and was very interested in organic oil. At the time, I was among the very first in Umbria to make PDO oil”. The collaboration became practically inevitable…
“When he returned to Spello”, Antonelli Franceschini recalled, “we were able to see each other more; over time, our interactions became even more frequent and more intense. I think that he has the same esteem and consideration for me that I have for him and for his activity. He is one-of-a-kind: in a few years, he was able to create a winery that is probably the best in Italy”.
Both in terms of the production of the oil and the cultivation of legumes, since 1976, Cuore Verde is a company that has worked with full respect for nature and the environment. This respect, as Antonelli Franceschini told us, was inherited “from my father. I studied philosophy in Florence. I don’t come from agricultural studies or from a tradition in the field, so I had to learn over time. I began to follow the features of the land, and I became more and more passionate”.
“I was also fortunate because at the end of the 1980s, I met Gino Girolomoni, one of the founders of Italian organic farming, in Foligno, from whom I was able to learn information of fundamental importance for this sector”.
He had another lucky encounter with another great expert on the subject: Carlo Giansanti, who “entrusted me with an almost-extinct type of green beans called risina, and we successfully reproduced its seed.” “Risina”, concluded Antonelli Franceschini, “is among the legumes that have seen a real boom these years, including among international chefs”.
