Since 1896

Fratelli Urbani Farm
Gattaiola (Lu)

“What matters is knowing how to enjoy wine, not how to gulp it down. The latter means to defile its origins, its symbol and its story along with its most beautiful, ancient traditions.
We shall drink wine with a feel of poetry in ourselves and sacred dignity.
Wine is Italy’s spirit, the ecstasy of our light, and we shall drink it while filling our head with our story with our mind and heart filled with ancient, kind memories and traditions.
(Arturo Marescalchi – Oenologist)

The above quote reflects the mindset of our business when it comes to making and enjoying wine. It hasn’t changed since 1896, when Massimo Urbani bought some land in “al Bevilacqua”. Massimo was from Gattaiola, and there he returned after making business in South Africa, where he had started this very business. Once home, he arranged all he needed to make his farmhouse a model and successful company in this business. He sharecropped his land to develop the production of local grapes, although they were few, like cabernet, merlot, nebiolo, dolcetto and aleatico. He managed to be one of the first people to bottle wine around Lucca too.

In the name of tradition

The World War drastically slowed down the business, but once it ended, Angelo Massimo’s son took over the farmhouse and managed to achieve an excellent quality/quantity ratio in production along with his large family.
Back then the self-sufficiency politics pushed the Urbani family to invest on crops, fruit plants and olives as well. Angelo implemented in his business some tools he came up with like the “rotating harrow”, which he patented to drastically improve the production.
Business looked great, but then World War II erupted and it put an end to the positive results achieved up to that point. Around halfway in the fifties, Giuliano and Elio Urbani took over the farmhouse and rolled up their sleeves to update the machinery and crop production. Their hard work brought crops and fruit to be flagships of the Urbani’s business, along with their wine.
However, what really made the difference was selecting the grape bound to be sold as quality wine. They selected the vines best fitting the soil and climate of the farmland from the legacy of the former heads of the business and introduced the production of varietal wine, which was probably the first time someone had brought it in Lucca, and it brought a lot of positive things to their business.
Currently Fratelli Urbani’s business is going through a renovation given its long history, which is leading the family to resize their fields, all of which are in an IGT zone. Of course, they’ll never leave their dedication to wine.
On a side note, “Gattaiola”, where Fratelli Urbani’s business is still going on, seems to derive from the Latin words “grata aiola”, which means “fertile land”, according to the church archives.
It isn’t a coincidence that Lucca’s nobility has had estates built around Lucca’s southern lands since 1300.