Antonella Manuli, owner and founder of La Maliosa Farm and Winery and Olive Mill, first started in the wine industry over a decade ago when she was inspired to produce a wine that not only exemplified superior quality but was also made in a sustainable manner. It is a concept that wasn’t as widely accepted ten years ago.  She knew everyone’s goal would be to produce a high-quality wine but questioned how many people were interested in doing it in a way that was “respectful to the environment and respectful to the humans you work with, considering that the  vineyard can be very unhealthy for the workers due to all the spraying that’s done in conventional agriculture management.”

 It then became her motivation to “try and be an example of how you could do things in a different way, by still producing good wine while also taking into account the ethical aspects of your production.”

Staying true to her beliefs, in 2013 together with legendary viticulture researcher and natural wine producer, Lorenzo Corino, she developed a method for natural wine farming and production which has since been patented and is called the Metodo Corino.

We interviewed Antonella soon after shelter-in-place restrictions were mandated in Italy in response to the coronavirus pandemic. We asked what her favorite part of her job was. Antonella responded: “it is to be in the open air and do things in the countryside, which is not something I get to do much, especially at home and even more so now.”

This comes as no surprise as her winery is located in the beautiful rolling hills of the Maremma area of Tuscany, Italy. A place that anyone would be envious to spend time at! Antonella also has some great advice for women who want to pursue a career in wine. She says “Don’t listen. Okay? Because you need to pursue your goal and everybody is going to tell you why it’s not going to work  and why you’re not supposed to do things like that. Just don’t listen! You need to be very, very concentrated and believe in yourself.”

Earlier this month, Antonella, was faced with an unexpected challenge, which was to quickly unite her family which was dispersed across Italy and Europe before the severe lock-downs due to COVID-19 would force them to remain apart. She succeeded in getting her family all together just in the nick of time! Yet, she and her family are living with the many inconveniences of living out your daily life in small places all together with many restrictions. “It is extremely stressful and hard,” she said, “we feel like refugees.’

However, going beyond the day-to-day inconveniences is the looming devastation to the economy, and this will hurt Italian wineries really hard, especially smaller ones. Compared to larger wineries, smaller ones, like Antonella’s, have less resources, lack regular distribution channels and rely very much on word-of-mouth and tourists.

“The Italian wine industry will face even more severe financial hardships in the upcoming months as wine tourism plays an enormous part in winery sales, ” says Antonella. She says for some wineries it is “50%-60% of a winery’s sales and it’s the sales with the highest margin because they are selling at the highest price (on premise).” They have no idea when things will start to get better and when wine tourism will resume but she does know that none of those “sales” can now be recuperated.  

Are you interested in helping some of these smaller italian wineries, like Antonella’s? Vero specializes in small producers who are especially being hurt by the COVID-19 fallout. You can show your support, and treat yourself at the same time to delicious, artisanal wines and olive oils. Purchase online in the VeroShop and we’ll ship it to you for free (1 case or more). If you have a wine store who is seeking small production wines made by sustainable and passionate producers like Antonella, please contact us for pricing and distribution info.

Here more from Antonella on her farm here.

Keep well and safe!