“Pane e vino” in Italian means “bread and wine.” Gianfranco Manca was raised a baker. At an early age, he took over his uncle’s bakery and baked the classic Sardinian breads that he learned to make from his mother and aunts. Their bread is still prized in his town and the bakery was a success. With the bakery, there also came some plots of land with some very old vines that had somehow remained, although practically neglected for years. They were trained in albarello (goblet), the traditional back-breaking low-growing system used on the islands of Italy, and were very diverse with over 30 different grapes, but mainly Cannonau (Grenache).

Since he was already an expert at fermentation with bread, Gianfranco believed the natural progression would be to understand wine fermentation with the help of these vines. He set about rehabilitating the old vines and planted a parcel of new vines of Monica and Carignano del Sulcis, the local strain of the famous grape, Carignan. He started making wine in the mid 80’s, but it wasn’t until 2005 that he was ready to put a label on it and offer his interpretation to the rest of the world.