Sometimes it takes an outsider’s perspective to make us appreciate what’s right under our noses. A wine obsessive since childhood, Stefano Papetti Ceroni met his future wife Eloisa de Fermo at law school in Bologna. They bonded over a shared passion for wine, but it wasn’t until almost a decade after they fell in love that Eloisa took Stefano to her family’s farm in Abruzzo’s Pescara hills—a farm that had been in her family for 250 years but to which she had never paid much mind up to that point in her life.
Stunned by the property’s rich history—church documents show the existence of viticulture there as early as the 9th century—Stefano felt drawn to the land, spending many weekends there absorbing knowledge from the team who ran the farm and its vineyards. A seed began to germinate in Stefano’s and Eloisa’s minds, and, feeling the siren song of this remarkable Apennine terroir, they dedicated themselves to transforming De Fermo into a bona fide winery, bottling their first vintage in 2010.
The couple immediately set out to return to pre-chemical methods in De Fermo’s vineyards, adopting biodynamics in 2008 and becoming certified a few years later. The farm itself encompasses nearly 200 hectares, with 17 hectares of grapevines, 20 hectares of olive trees, and large swaths dedicated to vegetables, legumes, herbs, and grazing land for cows; Stefano and Eloisa understand that this biodiversity is a key ingredient in the quality of their wines and work always to nurture it.
Among the grapevines, Montepulciano leads plantings with 10 hectares of surface area; Pecorino, a variety Stefano particularly reveres and has been planting more of, encompasses 3.5 hectares; Chardonnay occupies 2.5 hectares; and just under one hectare is planted to Trebbiano. In contrast to the higher-yielding pergola system seen in many of the area’s vineyards, most of De Fermo’s vines are planted in cordon royat, which severely limits potential yields but produces particularly concentrated and expressive fruit.
Situated in the commune of Loreto Aprutino in the province of Pescara, De Fermo’s vineyards occupy among the best terroirs in all of Abruzzo: stony, steep slopes just a few kilometers south of the legendary Azienda Agricola Valentini. In Stefano’s skilled hands—assisted since 2015 by our friend Paolo Ravano, who manages vineyards for the likes of Cappellano and Le Boncie as well—these vineyards yield wines of uncommon mineral precision and complexity compared to those of their neighbors in the larger region.
De Fermo’s cellar work emphasizes minimal interference, anchored by the intent to produce as pure an expression of their immaculate vineyards as possible. To that end, they employ spontaneous fermentations, keep sulfur dioxide usage to a minimum, and bottle their wines gently and without filtration. A variety of aging vessels are employed—Stockinger botti, Garbelotto tonneaux, and concrete (notably, no stainless steel)—but all serve to provide textural harmony rather than to contribute aromas or flavors. This sort of sensitive, thoughtful low-interventionism allows the wines to locate expressive registers impossible with more strong-fisted methods.
For years, we searched in vain for a producer partner in this remarkable terroir, and we are thus particularly overjoyed to welcome Stefano and Eloisa into our family of growers. Their reputation as one of the very finest sources of Abruzzo wine—earned in a relatively brief period—is more than justified, and their star will surely only rise from here.
