Founded in 1884, Cantina Scacciadiavoli, literally meaning “cast out the devils,” takes its name from a 10th century exorcist who lived in the small village bordering the vineyard. He was known to use the wines while performing his exorcist ritual of ridding poor souls of demons.
Today, we feel that taking one sip of this heavenly wine will cast out the devils of your day and ease you into la dolce vita.
Now the oldest winery in the Montefalco appellation, Scacciadiavoli is currently run by Lacopo, Amilcare, Liu, Romeo and Fiammetta Pambufetti. They are the fourth generation, committing their time and energies to the great art of winemaking and to carrying on the name of the family estate. Two years ago, Bill wrote about a visit to the vineyard, and meeting Liu.

“As the [tour] group later agrees, a visit to the Scacciadiavoli winery is well worth the “sacrifice” they made to go.  There, not only were we treated to the company of two beautiful hosts – Liu Pambufetti, the daughter of the winery’s owner who has spent two years studying winemaking in France and her new assistant who, on her first day on the job, has been tasked with managing tours of the family’s winery – but we are treated to a fascinating tour of this most interesting winery.  Oh, and by the way, we get to taste their wines.

And what an interesting place it is.  One of, if not the oldest winery in Umbria, the architecture alone at Scacciadiavoli makes the visit worthwhile – the intentional layout of the levels of the winery to utilize gravity to do much of the work of pressing, vinifying and storing wine, the pitched floors to channel spilled wine and the enormous vats for storing and aging wine.  And then getting an opportunity to taste the family’s wines, which include the region’s only sparkling wines made from the local sagrantino grape and using the French methode champagnoise (one of the fringe benefits of having studied winemaking in France, no doubt).  Now that’s a “sacrifice” you can make, late in the afternoon after having just eaten and tasted wine.”

Here is a small vision of our return visit to the vineyard during Vinopalooza 2015!

And tomorrow we will be tasting all four of the Scacciadiavoli wines. Please join us from 6:00-7:30 PM here in Georgetown! RSVP here.