Italy · Ascoli Piceno & Southern Marche

Tenuta de Angelis

Organic estate in the Piceno hills of southern Marche, working Passerina, Pecorino, and Montepulciano across certified vineyards in Castel di Lama and Offida since 1958.

The producer

Tenuta De Angelis farms certified organic vineyards across two municipalities in the Ascoli Piceno province: Castel di Lama, where the winery sits, and Offida, a hilltown about fifteen kilometres south. Both place names appear on the labels. The Fausti family runs the estate today; Alighiero Fausti is the current head, representing the generation that completed the formal organic conversion across all vineyard holdings, certified by CCPB Srl. Three grapes organise the range: Passerina, Pecorino, and Montepulciano, all traditional Piceno varieties that had largely disappeared from commercial production in the zone before an earlier generation of growers brought them back.

The estate was founded in 1958, but its own bottled wines date only from the early 1990s. Those first thirty years were spent vinifying fruit for other growers and building the land base. A new winery went up in 1985 to close the production chain from vineyard to bottle, and the own-label range followed. Passerina is the grape that carries the estate's external profile: it appears as a varietal still white under the Offida DOC, as a long-Charmat Extra Brut, and as a component of Falerio DOC blends. The Pecorino Offida DOC and Montepulciano-based Rosso Piceno DOC complete the range.

Known for

Passerina Offida DOC and Pecorino Offida DOC from certified organic Piceno vineyards

Notable facts

The story

The Grapes Nobody Wanted

In the years after the 1985 winery build, Quinto Fausti joined a group of neighbouring Piceno growers working on what looked, from the outside, like a lost cause. Montepulciano, Pecorino, and Passerina, three of the zone's most historically rooted grape varieties, had been effectively abandoned by commercial producers across the region. The market had moved toward easier-selling international varieties, and the old Piceno grapes had no organised wine-law framework, no lobby, and no apparent audience. Fausti and the group planted the varieties anyway, worked within the local appellation system, and produced wine from grapes most of their peers had already written off. By the early 1990s, when Tenuta De Angelis released its first own-label wines, those three grapes were on the bottles. The Offida DOC was eventually built around two of them.

From the atlas

Tenuta de Angelis

At A Glance

The Producer

Tenuta De Angelis farms organic vineyards in the Piceno hill country of southern Marche, splitting its land between two municipalities: Castel di Lama, where the winery sits at Via San Francesco 10, and Offida, a hilltown about fifteen kilometres south. Both place names appear on the labels. The Fausti family runs the estate; Alighiero Fausti is the current head, representing the generation that completed the conversion to fully certified organic farming. Three grapes organise the range: Passerina, Pecorino, and Montepulciano, all varieties that had largely disappeared from commercial production in the Piceno before an earlier generation of growers brought them back.

The estate's own bottled wines date from the early 1990s, a late start for an estate founded in 1958. Those first thirty years were spent vinifying grapes for others and building the land base. The bottled range arrived only after the winery was rebuilt in 1985 to complete the chain from vineyard to bottle. What that sequence produced is an estate that knows its ground before it knows its market.

Place

Marche runs down the Adriatic side of the Apennines, and the Piceno is its southernmost hill zone. Castel di Lama and Offida sit in the Ascoli Piceno province, where the hills are steep enough to slow ripening but warm enough to bring Montepulciano to full colour. The legal framework adds specificity: Offida DOC, a sub-zone appellation carved from the broader Piceno geography, permits only two grapes as varietal still wines, Passerina and Pecorino, both whites. Montepulciano travels under the Rosso Piceno DOC and its more concentrated sibling, Rosso Piceno Superiore DOC. Falerio DOC, a blended white appellation for the same zone, takes Passerina as a component.

The two municipalities in the estate's vineyard holdings are not adjacent. Castel di Lama is closer to the Tronto river valley; Offida sits higher and further south. The distance matters because it gives the estate access to more than one expression of the same variety grown in the same appellation framework.

Soil And Site

No verified soil type, slope orientation, vine age, or parcel breakdown is available for Tenuta De Angelis vineyards. The estate's land spans Castel di Lama and Offida, the two municipalities central to the Piceno hill zone, but no field-by-field data has been published in sources consulted for this page.

Story

The De Angelis family opened its first winery in 1958, initially to process its own grapes alongside fruit from neighbouring growers. The arrangement was practical: the Piceno had plenty of vineyards but few estates capable of fermenting and storing wine. For the next two decades the family expanded its vineyard holdings in both Castel di Lama and Offida without building an operation designed to bottle under its own name.

That changed in 1985, when a new winery went up specifically to close the production loop. The investment was a commitment: from that point, the estate would carry the wine from harvest through bottling itself. The own-label range followed in the early 1990s.

A parallel thread ran through those years. Quinto Fausti, the family member who shaped the estate's next phase, was working alongside other Piceno producers to bring three traditional varieties back into serious cultivation. Montepulciano, Pecorino, and Passerina had all but dropped out of commercial production in the zone. The recovery was collective, driven by a group of growers who believed those grapes belonged to the territory and were worth reviving. The varieties that came back from that effort are now the core of the Piceno appellation system and the basis of the Tenuta De Angelis range.

Alighiero Fausti leads the estate today. The third generation's main decision has been to take the organic commitment to its formal conclusion: all vineyards between Castel di Lama and Offida are now certified by CCPB Srl, one of Italy's recognised inspection bodies for organic wine.

Vineyards And Cellar

Every vineyard carries permanent grass cover between the rows. Grass cover holds moisture and slows nutrient cycling, which keeps vine vigour in check across the growing season. The estate also limits the number of bunches each vine carries, a yield-reduction choice that concentrates flavour in the fruit that remains. Both practices are common in low-intervention viticulture; at Tenuta De Angelis they are part of a certified organic system rather than a marketing position.

Harvest is done by hand. Grapes are selected and sorted in the vineyard rather than on a sorting table back at the winery, with the picker deciding in the row which clusters are destined for which winemaking project. The approach requires more labour but gives each wine a cleaner raw material before fermentation begins.

No vessel type, fermentation duration, ageing regime, or specific cellar method has been verified for any individual wine in the range.

Wines

Passerina is the grape that carries the estate's international profile. The varietal still white under the Offida DOC is the most widely distributed wine: a single-grape bottle made entirely from Passerina, certified organic, and light enough in body to work as a straightforward drinking white. The same grape appears in a long-Charmat Extra Brut sparkling wine, where secondary fermentation happens in a pressurised tank rather than a bottle, and as a component of Falerio DOC, a blended white appellation where Passerina shares the blend with other permitted Piceno white varieties.

Pecorino Offida DOC is the second white. Pecorino carries higher natural acidity and more aromatic intensity than Passerina. Where Passerina in the glass is typically light and citrus-forward, Pecorino tends to be more assertive, with a fuller body and more obvious grip on the finish. Both grapes are white; both carry the Offida DOC; they are not interchangeable.

The red range runs on Montepulciano, the dominant red grape of Marche and Abruzzo. Rosso Piceno DOC is the entry-level appellation, where Montepulciano is the majority variety in the blend. Rosso Piceno Superiore DOC allows higher concentration and longer ageing and represents the more serious tier of the same variety on the same hillside ground.

In The Glass

Passerina is a thin-skinned, early-ripening grape that produces pale, dry whites with citrus and white stone-fruit character, moderate alcohol, and clean acidity that keeps the wine from feeling flat. The variety is not high in aromatic compounds, so the wines read as direct and food-friendly rather than fragrant or complex. The long-Charmat Extra Brut version preserves that freshness in a leaner, drier mousse, with the extended tank time adding a faint yeast note to the citrus base.

Pecorino Offida DOC reads differently: the variety has more natural aromatic lift, a fuller mid-palate, and firmer acidity than Passerina. In a dry white context it tends toward riper stone fruit and herbal notes on the nose, with a finish that carries more texture.

The Montepulciano-based reds in Rosso Piceno DOC typically show dark fruit, firm tannin, and enough acidity to keep the wine from feeling heavy. Rosso Piceno Superiore moves the same grape into more concentrated territory, with the added ageing allowance deepening the colour.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with the Passerina Offida DOC still white. It is a single-variety, certified organic wine made entirely from Passerina grown across the estate's Castel di Lama and Offida vineyards. The grape is native to southern Marche and the Piceno is its home appellation: the Offida DOC was constructed in part around Passerina, which means this bottle sits at the intersection of the estate's core farming commitment, its most directly identified variety, and the appellation that defines the territory. In the glass it is pale, dry, and light-bodied, with citrus and white fruit on the nose and a clean, moderately acidic finish. No oak, no sweetness, no complication. The 2019 vintage is the one confirmed in international retail listings.

Anecdote

At some point in the years following the 1985 winery build, Quinto Fausti went to work with a group of neighbouring Piceno growers on a problem that looked, from the outside, like a lost cause. Montepulciano, Pecorino, and Passerina, three of the zone's most historically rooted grape varieties, had effectively been abandoned by commercial producers across the region. The market had moved toward easier-selling international varieties and the old Piceno grapes had no lobby, no wine-law framework organised around them, and no apparent audience. Fausti and the group pushed anyway, planting the varieties, organising within the local appellation system, and producing wine from grapes that most of their peers had already written off. By the early 1990s, when Tenuta De Angelis released its first own-label wines, those three grapes were on the bottles. The Offida DOC was eventually built around two of them.

Final Word

Tenuta De Angelis is an estate built around three traditional Piceno varieties. The range is organised around three traditional Piceno varieties that the estate helped revive, grown on certified organic land across two municipalities, and made into wines that carry the appellation name on the label. Passerina Offida DOC is the bottle that summarises the work: a single grape, a home appellation, and farming done to a documented standard.

Sources

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