Fattoria Albamarina in Palinuro was the first stop in our new #ViaggidiVini column. The choice of starting from Campania was not accidental, since the times of the Greeks and Romans, the perfect land for the vines that still today have their roots in the bubbling subsoil and stretch their shoots on the coasts of the Sorrento Peninsula, the Amalfi Coast and the ancient colony of Magna Graecia, now known as the Cilento coast.
ViaggidiVini starts from Cilento
And it was precisely in Cilento that we landed for our personal GrandTour which is inspired by those journeys immortalized in the eighteenth-century gouaches or described by the pens of well-known and lesser-known travelers from northern Europe. After all, already at that time the great artistic and archaeological attractions married the great wines.
And now, as then, we, travelers of the Third Millennium, let ourselves be enchanted by the trail of delicate and pleasant smells, intersecting the routes of the grand tour, in search of the more or less charged straw yellow colors of the Fiano and discovering the dry flavors of the Aglianico, with ample and pleasant aromatic aftertaste, assimilated by a territory cultivated with vineyards for at least four hundred years.
Historical documents attest that it was in Centola that a wine was produced that the Popes liked, so much so that it was never missing on the tables in the Vatican. Mario Notaroberto, owner of Fattoria Albamarina together with his sons Dario and Livio, and entrepreneur, restaurateur, chef and importer and distributor of high quality Italian wines and agro-food products in Luxembourg where he has lived for longer thirty-five years with his family, would have told us this and other stories.
But Mario, as he defines himself as a “Cilentan peasant brigand”, even if he gave us more the idea of a privateer always sailing between the two Luxembourg and Cilento shores, we were unable to meet him because he was recalled by urgent commitments in Luxembourg. So promise is to return when he is in his Cilento to meet him.
To welcome us, together with our Otto, his wife Marina and Alfredo Galietti who takes care of a bit of everything on the farm, from hospitality to the vineyards to the cellar.
Marina who tells us not only the story of Fattoria Albamarina, but also her personal one: her meeting with Mario, many years ago on a train that took her from her Genoa to Naples, her father’s city, and then about her arrival in Cilento where she spent her first holidays after starting to work in Luxembourg.
All started with the train and the passage that the nice young gentleman offered her. She gladly accepted and only at the station she discovered that it would be aboard a two-wheeler and not a car! How did it end? Since 1984 Mario, originally from Castinatelli di Futani, has moved to Luxembourg, first with his activity in the construction sector and then creating his own reality in the field of catering.
Today, however, after having opened a restaurant there for each of his two sons, Dal Notaro and Culturando, he dedicates himself almost completely to the new creature, Fattoria Albamarina, which in its name recalls the dawn of a new experience, started in 2009, and his beloved Marina.
With her we take an aperitif tasting two of the six labels of the excellent overall wine production of about 30,000 bottles a year, produced in this territory stretching towards the sea and protected by Mount Gebilson, all curated by the oenologist Carmine Valentino: Valmezzana Fiano Cilento Dop and Primula Fiano Paestum Igt. Both Fiano in purity, the fruit of those first vines planted in 2009, the first matured and aged for three months in steel and six months in bottle, the second worked in steel and glass, return the aromas of the Mediterranean scrub and the sea breezes that caress the grapes bringing them to the right ripeness.
Our favorite? Valmezzana, which takes its name from the place where the vines are planted, has a warm straw yellow color, which seduces with its fresh and fruity aromas, with a round and full flavor, supported by an invigorating acidity. To mark the bottle, then, a beautiful label depicting a butterfly which, as Marina explains us, is a symbol of lightness but also of transience.
In the cellar with Alfredo we tasted the Maricinè rosato Paestum Igp, produced by Aglianico and dedicated to Marina, and the Agriddi Aglianico Cilento Dop, aged in steel and then in large barrels for two years and raised in the bowl for a year, with a alcohol content of fourteen and a half, with an intense ruby red color and persistent aroma of spices.
During the tasting we appreciated the nectar produced by the vine that embodies the Campania viticulture and that also makes it well vinified in rosé. A truly remarkable wine with a strong character, the Aglianico, whose vines here in Cilento are forced to defy the force of gravity: we realize this the next morning during the visit to the vineyard that “embroiders” the hills, skirting the Lambro river.
Our sleeps were reconciled by the silence and tranquility that you breathe at Fattoria Albamarina in one of the apartments of the farmhouse, ideal for those who want to spend a wonderful holiday in Cilento in direct contact with the lush nature of the Park. Only 4 kilometers separate the beautiful beaches of Palinuro from the Agriturismo, a two-storey building divided into eight 70 sqm apartments all equipped with kitchenette, two or three bedrooms, balcony or terrace from which to enjoy the view of olive groves, trees from fruit and Mediterranean scrub.
A large outdoor area with solarium and swimming pool, barbecue and oven is also available to guests. Nearby there is a space dedicated to rabbits, chickens, goats, turkeys, pigeons, donkeys and Corso dogs, the passion of the landlord. In addition to wine, here at Fattoria Albamarina they produce excellent honey and Evo oil from the ancient Pisciotta cultivar.
Agriturismo Fattoria Albamarina
SS447 – Centola (Sa)
www.fattorialbamarina.com
Info: +39 339 8084006 – notarobertom@gmail.com
