Natural, terroir-driven wines from deep in the Italian countryside made by una americana – who’da thunk it? La Villana is the passion project of Joy Kull, an American ex-pat now living in the outer reaches of Lazio, along the volcanic shores of Lake Bolsena, 2 hours north of Rome. A college summer gig at her father's wine shop set the hook for Joy’s intrigue in wine, followed swiftly by a change of majors to beverage management. After a short stint as a sommelier and online wine broker in NYC, coupled with an increasing distaste for the pomp and pretense of formal wine education, Joy found herself unfulfilled and at a major crossroads. Enamored with the wines of Italy, Joy made plans to move there in hopes of finding an internship at a winery, landing at Le Coste – not a bad place to learn about hyper-local, low-intervention wine – and fell in love with vineyard work and the Lazio region, particularly the breathtaking lake of Bolsena. After a few harvests, she flirted with the idea of returning to the US to start a winery, but her newfound love for Lazio got the upper hand. Against all odds, she decided to use all of her savings to purchase a hectare of land and go from there.
'Fuori Luogo' translates to “out of place,” and since the Viognier, Vermentino, and Moscato that make up this bottling are not indigenous to this area of Lazio or Joy’s home vineyards, the name is certainly fitting. The vineyard, located in Farnese, was originally planted about 20 years ago for a cooperative cantina in Pitigliano, but the cooperative stopped paying for the grapes and Joy was able to convince the vingoalio to keep farming the vineyard just as he was about to rip out the vines; he now still farms the two hectares for her.