Name: Alexander (Ali) Rocca
Grad Year: 2002
Major/Minor: International Political Economy / Mexican Studies
Extracurriculars at CC: Swim Team
Current Location: Jesi, Italy
Viva l’italia, viva il vino buono.
It was a beautiful Friday morning this past May and I was driving alone along a windy mountainous road in the Abruzzo region of Central Italy. The sun was shining, the fields were green and there were still patches of snow on the mountaintops. The Adriatic Sea was behind me and I was climbing through the Maiella mountains, headed to the small village of Villetta Barrea to meet with the group of CC students studying Italian food and language in the same hotel where, 23 years earlier, my life in Italy began. As I approached, memories began flooding back. First I saw the alpine lake as I began the descent into the village, then a familiar fountain, and finally the front of Hotel degli Olmi where I learned my first words of Italian and where I would share my story with the current group of CC students and reunite with the one and only Sal Bizzarro, who has introduced Italy to so many CC students over the past 40+ years.
I spent the summer of 2000, between my sophomore and junior year at CC, in the Abruzzo region of Italy with the CC Italian in Italy course. In typical CC fashion, my fellow classmates and I fully immersed ourselves in the language and culture for eight weeks, enjoying the pasta, the pizza, the calcio, and, of course, the wine. For all of us, it was an incredible life experience never to be forgotten. For me, it was such a positive summer that when graduation came around two years later, I decided to move to Italy. So, in August of 2002, I packed my bags to move to the Marche region of Italy for a year teaching English. Then life happened. I met a girl, I changed jobs, we got married, had kids, and finally, dulcis in fondo, we opened a winery.
My wife and I started our estate winery, Pietro 17, during the pandemic. It was originally our retirement plan, but the pandemic provided the opportunity to put the plan in motion earlier. We purchased an old vineyard, restructured it, set-up a winemaking facility, and are now heading into our third harvest. The name comes from our location, in Contrada San Pietro number 17. On this site, in the town of Staffolo, we grow grapes organically, make wine following low-intervention winemaking practices, and bottle the finished product. We grow three different grape varieties and make two different wines. Our Verdicchio grapes are vinified by themselves for a Castelli di Jesi Verdicchio Riserva Classico DOCG and our Malvasia and Trebbiano grapes form a Marche Bianco IGT blend vinified as an orange wine, meaning with skin contact. Both wines are now imported into Colorado by Bond Imports, run by fellow CC-alum David Bond ‘02, and distributed by Oasis Wines.
My wife and I are fully immersed in the wine industry, a bit like an extended block at CC though without the Block Breaks. We are loving it because wine, like nothing else, brings people together. The May meeting with the CC group in Villetta Barrea is a perfect example of this.
