Allegra Selvaggi wasn’t supposed to be running her family’s small wine estate in a remote corner of southern Italy.
But five years ago she was summoned by her family. She left her career as a strategic sustainable energy planner in Rome to run Fattoria Galardi, their pioneering boutique winery, which had fallen on hard times.
“Wine wasn’t always a passion for me,” says Selvaggi, 37, who recalls trading her micro-car for a pickup truck to navigate the forested slopes of Campania’s extinct Roccamonfina volcano, on which the winery sits. Coming here “was a bit of an obligation, but it became a passion.”
Galardi, a small estate with a celebrated flagship red called Terra di Lavoro, has long been the most noted winery in Caserta province, about 40 miles north of Naples.
After moving full time to this lush volcanic countryside, Selvaggi has applied her methodical ways to management and become Galardi’s face to the world.
Once she turned the winery around, that attracted attention. In June, Tenute Capaldo, the Campania-based wine group that grew out of Feudi di San Gregorio, bought Galardi winery and its vineyards. However, Selvaggi will continue to run the estate, and renowned enologist Riccardo Cotarella will stay on as winemaker.
“Galardi is one of the top Italian wines, and I’ve been impressed and inspired by the work they did,” says group president Antonio Capaldo, who promises to be a “silent owner.”
Capaldo bought Galardi from the four family branches that owned it, but only after convincing Allegra to stay on as estate director. He also gave her the possibility of earning back an ownership stake.
“If we just bought Galardi without [collaboration with] the family and Allegra,” he says, “it would have been a massive destruction of value.”
Selvaggi says her mission is unchanged. Capaldo will help increase Galardi’s profile and return it to the U.S. market after a hiatus.
“Galardi will remain more or less as it is today,” she says. “It’s important for me that we stay the same size, the same quality, and that the wines come from our vineyards.”
The Land of Work: How Galardi Began
For much of Galardi’s history, it ran more on dreams than business. Its story—as romantic and operatic as Southern Italy itself—began with the vision of Selvaggi’s father, Roberto, a Rome-based historian, journalist and advocate for southern Italian causes.
The son of a politician, Roberto married Maria Luisa Murena, whose noble southern family owned more than 700 acres of oak and chestnut forests here. More than three decades ago, the couple and three other family members began thinking about planting vineyards to produce a red wine. Roberto called his friend Cotarella for advice.
“Riccardo said, ‘Absolutely no. There is no [wine] tradition there, and it is in the middle of nowhere,’” says Allegra.
But Roberto persisted, believing that history was on his side. Caserta province, after all, had been part of the old agricultural region that the Bourbon rulers of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies (1816–1861) had formally designated Terra di Lavoro (Land of Work). An existing one-acre vineyard, planted to Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon, sat at more than 1,200 feet, facing west with views of the Gulf of Gaeta 10 miles away.
“My father said, ‘How is it possible we can’t make a quality wine here?’” Allegra says.
The five spent more and more time on the land, working organically and regrafting their small vineyard to Campania’s tannic Aglianico and fruit-driven Piedirosso grape varieties. They improvised a micro-winery in old stables built into the mountainside, bought a couple of new French oak barriques, and made their debut Terra di Lavoro blend in 1984.
The wine impressed Cotarella so much that he invited them to the Vinitaly wine fair in Verona, where they sold all 40 cases to Leonardo LoCascio, founder of U.S. importer Winebow.
After the first vintage ($29), the family invested in winery equipment and expanded their vineyards. Quality improved, with 13 of 15 subsequent vintages blind-tasted by Wine Spectator scoring 90 points or higher. At its best, Terra di Lavoro is a complex mid- to full-bodied wine—juicy, spicy, earthy and elegant all at once.
But Roberto did not live to see the success.
Living in southern Italy, he had developed another obsession: the history of the Italian south, specifically the glories of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, which ended with Italian unification. He was incensed by derogatory portrayals of the south in his lifetime and sought to correct the record.
He ran an unsuccessful, campaign for European Parliament, wrote books on the Bourbons and their armies, served as a consultant on historical films and started a newspaper that focused on the south’s past and present. He also curated and financed critically acclaimed historical exhibitions that led him to borrow.
In 2001, overwhelmed by debts, he took his own life.
“He won a lot of battles,” explains Allegra. “But he lost the war.”
With Cotarella’s guidance, the family carried on, through good times—the estate grew to 25 acres and produced more than 2,000 cases by 2007—and through years of financial and political crises in Italy.
Though the wines were exported throughout Europe and the U.S., no one in the family actually helped sell the wine or represent it in any markets. In 2018, after a nearly decade-long slump, Selvaggi says, “My mother and aunt called me to come give them a hand.”
Within months, she took over running the estate. “I did it because my father didn’t get to see the fruition of his dream,” she says.
One of her first tasks was to head to New York, to examine U.S. distribution.
“I was the first one from Galardi to go to the U.S.,” says Selvaggi, who made five trips to tour the country in 2019. That year also saw the first release of the estate’s second wine: an easy-drinking Piedirosso called Terra di Rosso, inspired by the exceptional 2017 vintage.
In 2020, with the advent of the COVID pandemic, she ended the contract with Winebow, placing half of that and subsequent vintages in storage.
Galardi’s return to the U.S. under its new ownership should be welcome news to Italian wine lovers. “We will protect the story of Galardi, ensure the independence and continue with Allegra what she started,” says Capaldo.
Selvaggi continues to work closely with a young staff, including five full-timers in the vineyards and two in the winery, where she lives. They meet every morning over coffee in her kitchen, discussing most every detail of the vineyards and winery that have become her life.
“I am a tank. I want to know the why of everything at 360 degrees,” she says, adding that her city days are over. “When you experience the nature and peace and the sunsets here you can’t go back.”
