Gorelli Winery Montefalco
The Gorelli winery is based just outside Perugia. Yet for this tasting during the three-day A Montefalco experience the two active daughters of the estate came to Montefalco.
The tasting was conducted in a small enoteca on an ancient Montefalco street. It contained one front room lined with bottles, a refrigerated counter of cheeses and cured meats, and lots of wine bottles.
A dozen journalists stood shoulder to shoulder with glasses while the Gorelli sisters presented their wines.
The choice of venue underlined the practical reality of central Umbria. Perugia and Montefalco belong to the same wine story, but they are far enough apart that bringing the wines to town saves time for people with tight schedules.
Sisters Sara and Giulia Gorelli represent the fourth generation of the family and are the public faces of the estate abroad.
They handle much of the international promotion, traveling, pouring at events.
Other members of their immediate family remain involved in the day‑to‑day work at the winery.
At this tasting, both sisters spoke and showcased their wines. The format was simple and efficient: brief introductions, wine in the glass, a few key points about each bottle, and then space for the group to taste.
The wine lineup was what you would expect from a producer straddling Perugia and Montefalco.
There were whites, clean and straightforward, a clear entry into the range. Middle tier Montefalco Rosso reds showed the more approachable, everyday face of the estate.
And of course a Sagrantino to top it off, giving the group a sense of how the Gorelli portfolio extends from hills around Perugia into the Sagrantino zone.
The emphasis was on a quick overview rather than a deep dive into individual denominations or vineyards.
What made the tasting stand out was not a specific wine, but one object: the family cookbook.
The sisters passed around a volume of their grandmother’s recipes, printed in multiple languages.
The book exists because so many visitors to the Perugia tasting room asked for those recipes that the family decided to collect and translate them.
In the Montefalco enoteca, this cookbook served as a physical link between wine and the broader culture of the estate.
While the sisters spoke about vineyards and labels, the book quietly illustrated another part of their identity: a household that has been cooking and pouring in the same region for generations, now translating that history for an international audience.
The atmosphere matched the practical format: efficient, friendly, and informative.
There was no elaborate staging—just two sisters in a compact neighborhood shop, presenting their family’s wines to a small group of writers who had been spared the drive up to the Perugia hills.
The shop itself, likely used for many different purposes over the centuries, added a layer of context.
Montefalco’s old stone walls and narrow spaces hosting wines from another Umbrian hill, reminding everyone that regional boundaries are short distances in a car but long threads in the story of a family estate.
