Freisa “L'Ape Furibonda” - Ucci

UCCI Urban Winery – Collegno (TO), Piedmont

Wine is made in the countryside, and a winery is handed down through the family. UCCI exists to disprove both. Alessia Lenci and Mattia — the Ucci, to their friends — make wine inside their own home, in Collegno on the edge of Turin. In 2019 they converted some of the rooms of the house into an urban winery: the tanks, the barrels and the press are right there, among the houses, a few minutes from the centre of Turin.

A story that started from nothing. The project began in 2016, with no family winemaking tradition behind it: just study, tastings, experiment, and a winemaker friend who took them into his cellar and still follows them today. Alessia is Tuscan by origin, an AIS Sommelier and Onav taster, and looks after vineyard and cellar with the advice of an oenologist. Mattia handles the commercial side and lends a hand with the heavy work. Leo, their son, gives his name to one of the wines.

Two native grapes at the centre. No broad range: UCCI works mainly with two Piedmontese varieties. Freisa for the red, the rosé and the sparkling, Timorasso for the oak-aged white. The white of the Casa Ucci line, on the other hand, comes mainly from Cortese. Grapes that ask for patience and know how to age, worked without shortcuts.

The vineyard, outside the city. Since 2023 they have farmed a small parcel at Baldissero Torinese, on the hill looking over Turin, brought back with careful pruning, new plantings and controlled cover cropping. The grapes they still need come from growers they trust, working without systemic treatments. They do the harvest and the winemaking themselves.

The work, in detail. In the vineyard: Guyot training, no herbicides and no chemical fertiliser, cover crops of clover, birdsfoot trefoil and rocket sown between the rows, compost from stems and pomace, copper and sulphur for protection. In the cellar: fermentations started with a pied de cuve from their own grapes, no fining, filtration only where unavoidable, stabilisation using the winter cold. Punch-downs, pump-overs, bottling and labelling are all done by hand.

The labels. L'Ape Furibonda (Freisa), L'Equilibrista (Timorasso), Il Sole di Leo (Freisa rosé, also as a sparkling wine), the Casa Ucci line and Vermouth Lenci, made from their white wine.

A tiny winery, inside a city, where every bottle passes through the same two hands.