Tanca Gioia Carloforte Srl Società Agricola - Vini U Tabarka

About Winery and Wines

The idea of creating a winery came up to founders’ mind during a night sailing lap. This happened more than twenty years have ago. We’ve started with Carignano del Sulcis and Vermentino di Sardegna grapes in 2000, after some year we’ve added Nasco Aromatico, Moscato di Calasetta and small Bovale (Bovaleddu). Tough we are young we’ve learned quickly. St. Peter Island climate and ecosystem give us clear rules, though sometimes. There’s no discussion about, you can only accept them.We moved to action, days spent under a blazing sun, efforts of men and women that made all this possible. Today we proudly present the essence of this, our wines made from autochthonous grapes. With the peculiar name “U-Tabarka” the winery wants to pay homage to our land: this name is taken from Tabarka, a small tunisian village, where a small colony of Genoese fishermen settled in late 11th century. In 1738 the same colony moved totally to the Island of St. Peter, once uninhabited.

All our vineyards are located in the center of the island, divided into two large plots: we call them Vigna Alta and Vigna Bassa. Both Vignas added together make a little less than 10 hectares of dry and sandy soil, ideal for an extreme-quality viticulture. Thanks to the sand we can afford to cultivate vines ungrafted (without rootstock of american vines). This feature is very important because, according to the leading experts in modern microbiology of the soil and according to the elderly, the rootstock behaves as a filter and distorts and depletes wines as compared with a vine “in one piece”. Carignano del Sulcis and Vermentino di Sardegna grown in this way have exciting perfumes and a persistence. Each square meter, each plant is in sight of the sea and its breath. The wind in Carloforte is almost a constant presence, the real difference is between the normal breeze or the gentle south wind and the bully mistral. The Mediterranean bush close to the cliffs is more exposed and it is shaped from birth: it grows short and oriented along the axis Mistral wind (Mistral – France) and Scirocco wind (Africa). Wind from the sea, sandy soil and the absence of barriers between the grapes and the roots mean that all our wines are pretty mineral and salty.