Garantito IGP: Rockea, The Only Vine That Carries Water

This time Carlo Macchi takes the stand and goes in an unusual direction:

Usually, vines draw water from the ground and use it "to make wine." In the case of Rockea, the vines that Winesurf has, with our friends at Rocca delle Macie, been filming for the past two years as part of the Big Brother of the Vine Project, the reverse is about to occur. Its wine will bring water, not to a vineyard, but to the children of an orphanage in Malawi. How? Let's take things a step at a time.

The videos we call "Big Brother of the Vine" came about almost as a joke, in part because filming every phase in the growth of a vine, from bud break through pruning and harvesting seemed one of the most boring things imaginable, and therefore bantering as we filmed (especially while we were talking about things agronomical) was the only way to make the project interesting enough to continue it.

This led to our deciding to give a name to our vine, and, after sounding our viewers we decided upon Rockea. The second year we decided to follow The Big Brother of the Vine with The Great Fermentation of the Vine, i.e. videos of the fermentation. To do this we bought an aquarium and filled it, not with goldfish but rather grapes. We thus saw how the cap rises, what happens during a punch down, and what to do and not do during the primary fermentation. When we decided to do the Great Fermentation, we also decided to give these videos, which, as we joke along, have already been seen by more than 100,000 people, a reason for being.

Thus we decided to do something humanitarian and began looking for the right thing.

Now the project exists, and is called, Rockea: From Wine to Water. The goal is to build a pumping station and a cistern for the water in an orphanage in southern Malawi, one of the poorest places on the surface of the Planet. The orphanage is on the road from Mangochi to Monkey Bay. With the funds we will gather we will purchase a pump, piping, and a cistern, which will provide the orphanage with what we take for granted, but in many parts of the world is the most precious thing of all: Water. The water will be drawn not from a well, but from Lake Malawi. This project is being carried out by Lufelade, a charitable organization our friends at Rocca delle Macie know well, that has been working for many years in Malawi.

How to finance the project? At the harvest we gathered all the grapes in the row with the Rockea vine, put a small fraction in the aquarium, and the rest in a half-ton capacity steel tank. Here the grapes fermented, and after racking the wine filled a single barrel. This barrel will yield 300 numbered bottles of a wine called Rockea Dal Vino All'Acqua (Rockea, From Wine to Water).

These bottles, which will be sold (and this is where you come in) for 40 Euros, will finance the project.

The wine won't be available before April, but you can already help the children in the orphanage by reserving one or more bottles (if you move quickly, selecting the numbers, from 1 to 300, which you like best). How? Send an email to carlo DOT macchi AT winesurf DOT it or valeria DOT canu AT roccadellemacie DOT com with your name, surname, and address. Payment (via credit card, bank transfer, or to Rocca delle Macie ) can come later.

In closing I want to thank you, who, by purchasing a bottle, will help us to bring the children many cisterns of water.

By the way, it may not be the most important thing, but I guarantee that the wine that will go into it is excellent!

Published Simultaneously by IGP, I Giovani Promettenti.

We Are:
Carlo Macchi
Kyle Phillips
Luciano Pignataro
Roberto Giuliani
Stefano Tesi