Dino Briglio founded L'Acino in 2006 with two childhood friends who have since amicably moved on from the project. As natives of the mountain town of San Marco Argentano, the winery is a communal effort to express the oft-forgotten possibilities of Calabrian 

terroir.

Though they had no viticultural or winemaking experience, their love of wine was enough to start an estate. And the trio's taste for vini naturali meant focusing their attention on organic viticulture and minimal intervention winemaking.

Dino, now fully at the helm of l'Acino since 2016, owns eleven hectares of vines and rents five (mostly of older vines). All the vines are between 400 and 650 meters elevation. Though he's never studied viticulture or enology, he is the son and grandson of farmers and the work has proved to be instinctive. 

The wines ferment off their native yeasts.

Dino attentively selected his barrels, all crafted by an artisan cooper based in Irpinia (the terroir of Taurasi wine), Campania, with local woods. L'Acino use use oak and chestnut barrels for red wines, and acacia and mulberry barrels for white wines. Calabrian winemakers traditionally used to age their wines in mulberry and chestnut. Until 150 years ago, Calabria was covered in mulberry trees, as these are fundamental for silkworm farming. Dino chose to regain this old tradition of land, long-fogotten for mulberry in particular. Dino is the only winemaker in Italy to own large mulberry barrels.

Vinifications take place without addition or retractions, without any addition of sulphites. The whites are wildly original and compelling, while the reds are a pure, quaffable joy.