Secco
- Characteristics
- A dry style named in the specification.
Vines among trees and city gardens
Orvieto’s wine history reaches from the cliff-top city’s gardens to vines trained on living trees.
Vineyards once occupied the rock on which Orvieto stands, alongside the gardens of religious communities, noble households and city growers. The area near Piazza Cahen was known as Vigna Grande, and vines also grew behind the cathedral.
Before orderly rows, vines were grown in alberata: trained on living trees, including elms, olive trees and oaks. Around the middle of the seventeenth century, wooden supports were introduced and vines began to be planted intensively in rows. The change reshaped a landscape where trees and vines had grown together.
