Murogrosso
In 1970, Massimo Calabresi, civil engineer, entrepreneur and farmer, purchased about 140 hectares of land in the municipalities of Fabro and Ficulle to integrate the farms of Campagnano and Cerveteri in semi-wild cattle breeding. The Fabro estate, located among the hills marking the easternmost edge of the Roman Valdichiana, in a flat area along the banks of the river in Umbria called Chiani (from the Latin Clanis ), included flat, hilly and wooded land: the hilly land was used for grazing and viticulture, the flat, fertile and irrigated land for corn production for the calves. Upon Massimo’s death in 1983, the company was taken over by his son Giovanni, civil engineer and university professor, already involved in historic building conservation, who began to restore the abandoned ancient sharecropping farmhouses, using materials and technologies from the time of their construction. This character of the interventions is now recognizable in the restored buildings, dedicated to the cellar, agritourism hospitality and company services.
Livestock breeding was abandoned in 1985 due to a severe crisis in the sector, and the land was devoted to extensive crops and, predominantly on the hills, to viticulture, initially limited to a small Orvieto DOC vineyard. Starting in 1992 with new Orvieto DOC and Chardonnay varieties, investments were made in successive phases: planting red grape vineyards—Cabernet, Merlot and Sangiovese—in 1998, Grechetto in 2006, and Vermentino, Malvasia, Chardonnay and Sangiovese in 2015.
The decision to increase viticulture also led to a significant rise in the vinification of the grapes produced, limiting the sale to the Castel Viscardo Monrubio Cooperative Winery, of which the estate has been a member since 1986. A new, modern cellar was therefore built to best exploit the specific characteristics of the grapes produced, enabling the creation of particularly high-quality wines from the combination of different grape varieties and the soil and agronomic characteristics of the new vineyards. Equipment, facilities and tanks for the production, aging and maturation of white and red wines were installed on the ground floor of an ancient restored farmhouse, on the southern slope of Carnaiola hill, in the area known as Campi. The cellar was then expanded into an adjacent ancient rustic building and a new thermally conditioned structure for bottling and storing the wine produced.
Since 2018, the estate has effectively become a wine-producing company.
In February 2024, given the general evolution of the agricultural economy in Italy and Europe, which has greatly reduced the operating margins of extensive crops, the flat, hilly and wooded land on the right bank of the Chiani was sold to a neighboring farm already equipped and specialized for operating specifically in extensive crops.
The remaining part, consisting of vineyards and olive groves, with the restored buildings dedicated to agritourism and the winery facilities, remained the property of the same Calabresi family through the newly established Murogrosso Società Semplice Agricola. The name is taken from the place name of a nearby wall structure dating from the Etruscan or Roman era, of which only a few ruins remain, providing access to the bridge crossing the Chiani on the Via Cassia Traianea.
