Parallelo 43

Origins of the idea

Parallelo 43 grew out of Roberto Cipresso’s experience in Montalcino and his work across numerous wine regions. Montalcino taught him to regard terroir as a source of identity and showed him the depth and recognizability that Sangiovese can acquire in a particular place. His subsequent travels, harvests and projects in different countries led to a further question: could latitude provide another kind of geographical relationship between territories separated by mountains, seas, political borders and winemaking traditions?

The underlying intuition was that vineyards along the same horizon might share particular relationships with light and affinities in their vegetative cycles while retaining distinct soils, climates and cultural identities. The purpose was not to replace terroir with latitude, but to test whether strongly characterized varieties and origins could enter into dialogue through wine.

2016: foundation

Roberto Cipresso launched Parallelo 43 in 2016 with his brother Gianfranco. The project took the 43rd parallel north as an exploratory axis for connecting varieties and territories whose paths had historically remained separate. Its Italian core brought together Tuscany, Marche and Umbria through Sangiovese, Montepulciano, Sagrantino, Vermentino and Verdicchio.

The project was conceived as an open-ended investigation rather than a finished scientific theory. Political geography, appellation history, local customs and traditional trade routes had long kept these grapes in distinct regional narratives. Parallelo 43 proposed that they could retain their origins while being observed, vinified and, in selected cases, fermented together.

Development of the collection

The collection developed into six wines arranged around progressively more experimental expressions. Altrove began with healthy Sangiovese bunches removed during green harvesting to concentrate grapes intended for Brunello. Instead of treating those bunches as discarded material, the project gave them a different destination as a rosé sparkling wine. The three wines called the Punti then explored different forms of encounter: Vermentino with Verdicchio, two moments of Sangiovese ripeness, and Sangiovese with Montepulciano. Pigreco and Quadratura del Cerchio became the project’s most conceptually radical investigations, the former by separating and reuniting two fermentation paths from the same Sangiovese harvest, and the latter by seeking equilibrium among Sangiovese, Montepulciano and Sagrantino.

As the range evolved, co-fermentation became one of its defining tools. Rather than always making complete wines separately and blending them later, selected grapes could begin their transformation together, allowing skins, must, yeasts and aromatic components to interact from the outset.

A six-wine interpretation

By 2026, Parallelo 43 was presented as a six-wine journey beginning with Altrove and continuing through Punto Bianco, Punto Rosa, Punto Rosso, Pigreco and Quadratura del Cerchio. The sequence moves from freshness and immediacy toward deeper and more experimental interpretations. Montalcino remains the project’s point of departure and the location of its cellar presentation, while its conceptual and viticultural field extends across the central Italian regions associated with the 43rd parallel.

Parallelo 43 is a multi-region project rather than the expression of one contiguous estate. Its Italian vineyards are distributed across Tuscany, Marche and Umbria, with the cellar and conceptual point of departure in Montalcino.

The 43rd parallel north is treated as an imaginary viticultural horizon. From east to west it passes through Georgia and the Caucasus, crosses the Mediterranean and the Italian regions of Tuscany, Marche and Umbria, and continues toward the Basque Country, Languedoc, Oregon and Japan. The project also associates this latitude with the Tigris and Euphrates region, the Dalmatian coast, New York and other territories important to the history or development of viticulture.

Latitude is not presented as a substitute for terroir. Soils, climates, local traditions and grape identities remain distinct. Instead, the shared horizon provides a framework for exploring possible similarities in light exposure and vine growth cycles, and for asking how varieties from separate origins may relate in the cellar.

The collection’s summarized vineyard information places its sources between approximately 220 and 314 metres above sea level. Vermentino is associated with predominantly alkaline clay soils containing a substantial stony fraction. Verdicchio grows in deep soils with abundant sand and calcareous deposits. Sangiovese is associated with predominantly clay and tuff, Montepulciano with deep clay-sand soils containing calcareous deposits, and Sagrantino with clay-silt soils. The project juxtaposes the Tyrrhenian identity of Tuscan Vermentino and Sangiovese with the Adriatic identity of Marche-grown Verdicchio and Montepulciano, while Sagrantino introduces the Umbrian component.

The vineyards supplying the collection use cordone speronato training. Parallelo 43 also incorporates timing of harvest and crop selection into its conception of wine identity.

Altrove originated from healthy Sangiovese bunches removed during green harvesting to improve concentration in grapes destined for Brunello. The bunches were recognized as a resource with freshness, acidity and red-fruit character and redirected into a rosé sparkling wine. This practice is framed as applied sustainability: understanding the properties of material excluded from one production path and assigning it a purposeful alternative use.

Punto Rosa works with two moments in the development of Sangiovese. One component comes from an early harvest intended to preserve acidity, freshness and tension; another derives from saignée during the production of Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino, contributing greater color, body and structure.

Production is based on several distinct forms of encounter rather than one uniform protocol.

Altrove uses healthy Sangiovese bunches selected during green harvesting. The grapes are vinified as rosé and undergo a second fermentation in autoclave by the Charmat method; the summarized collection information gives three months in autoclave with selected yeasts.

The white component of the project is fermented in stainless steel at controlled temperature with selected yeasts. Its Vermentino and Verdicchio expression is matured on the lees in stainless steel, with the current project narrative giving eight months.

Punto Rosa combines early-harvest Sangiovese, retained for acidity and freshness, with a component obtained by saignée during Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino production, which supplies greater color and material. The collection information describes controlled-temperature stainless-steel fermentation and six months of maturation on the lees in stainless steel.

Co-fermentation is central to the current account of the Sangiovese–Montepulciano expression. Instead of fermenting complete wines independently and blending them afterward, the grapes enter fermentation together, so their skins, must, yeasts and aromatic components transform at the same time. The resulting wine is matured for eight months in second-use oak.

Pigreco divides one Sangiovese harvest into two opposed paths. One portion ferments with more skins, developing extraction, structure and material; the other proceeds without skins, more slowly and with greater aromatic delicacy. When the first lot has completed about 80% of fermentation, the two portions are reunited. The method seeks a moving equilibrium between extraction and lightness rather than a fixed mathematical proportion. Maturation lasts 12 months in French barriques, divided equally between first- and second-use wood.

Quadratura del Cerchio brings Sangiovese, Montepulciano and Sagrantino into a single composition. Fermentation is conducted at controlled temperature with selected yeasts in stainless steel and truncated-cone oak vats. Maturation lasts 18 months in French barriques, equally divided between first- and second-use barrels.

Parallelo 43 treats terroir as a point of departure rather than a boundary. Its purpose is not to erase origin or produce rootless wines, but to discover whether strongly defined varieties and territories can recognize one another and create a new equilibrium through a shared winemaking process.

The project frames the 43rd parallel as an intuition to be explored, not a conclusive scientific law. Latitude provides an alternative viewpoint from which to consider light, vegetative cycles and geographical affinity, while differences in soils, climates and cultural histories remain essential. Political borders, appellation rules and inherited production customs explain why the selected varieties historically followed parallel but separate paths; the wines ask what happens when those paths intersect.

Tradition and innovation are not treated as opposites. Knowledge of established grapes and places supplies the foundation for contemporary research. The past is retained but placed in motion through co-fermentation, unconventional combinations and contrasting treatments of the same harvest.

Roberto Cipresso’s broader principle is that rules are important but should be treated as a starting point rather than an endpoint. In Parallelo 43, this translates into a “vineyard without borders”: local identities remain recognizable while experimentation tests forms of connection that traditional regional narratives did not contemplate.

The collection also links precision with lightness and immediacy. Its fresher wines explore movement, light and nuance, while Pigreco and Quadratura del Cerchio push toward unresolved, dynamic forms of balance. Wine becomes a universal language capable of connecting distinct territories without denying their origins.