In 2010, Sofrà Sarleti Luca and his partner Carlotta chose the most difficult, most noble path: returning to the land. They took up the baton from their grandparents, Fernando and Maria, guardians of centuries-old olive trees and ancient wisdom, who blended oil, flowers and a few rows of Rossese and Vermentino grapes for family consumption.
We are in Dolceacqua, where Liguria becomes narrow, vertical, rugged and luminous.
Their agricultural project was born on a hill overlooking the medieval village dear to the Doria family – now twinned with the Grimaldi family of Monte Carlo. And it was born with respect.
The flowers, beautiful though they are, give way to vines: Rossese, first and foremost, and then Pigato, planted with the patience of those who know the value of time. Vermentino is partly abandoned. The olive trees remain, gnarled and sacred creatures that shape the hill with the rough grace of enduring things.
The entire estate dialogues with the light and the sea. The gaze runs along the Nervia Valley until it is lost in the blue line of the horizon.
Carlotta, for her part, wanted to bring back the memory of her childhood. In Isolabona, a village that looks like it came out of a Renaissance etching, her grandparents' olive trees live on today, silent and stubborn like the truest Liguria.
It is there, among terraces that are steep and impassable to any vehicle, that agriculture becomes heroic.
The term is not a quirk, but a statement of fact. Every clod of earth is the result of hands, hard work and respect.
Zero weeding. Minimal treatments. Natural nutrition.
