SETTONCE PROJECT

The Settonce Planting Layout: An Inspiration from Ancient Rome.

58 hectares of the estate are devoted to vineyards. Among them, the most distinctive are planted as high-density bush vines (5,120 vines per hectare), using the traditional “Settonce” planting layout.

In Italian agronomic tradition, the term ordo septuncialis (or Settonce), derives from the Latin septunx / septuncialis, va word originally used in the Roman system of weights and coinage.

To understand the cultural origins of this geometric layout, we must look back to early Rome.

ORIGINS

The Roman army originally fought in the Greek-inspired hoplite phalanx, a compact and highly disciplined military formation. Over time, however, Roman tactics evolved dramatically. The rigid phalanx gave way to the more flexible manipular formation, in which military units were arranged in a staggered pattern known as the quincunx or quinconce. This configuration allowed successive ranks to advance through the spaces left by the line ahead, greatly improving manoeuvrability and battlefield effectiveness.
The Romans soon recognized that the geometry of the quincunx extended beyond military strategy. It became a principle of order that could also be applied to the agricultural landscape. Ancient sources and later agronomic traditions describe how this arrangement created orderly alignments visible from multiple directions, combining practical efficiency with visual harmony.

Classical Roman authors regarded the orderly arrangement of vineyards and orchards as one of the defining principles of agriculture. Marcus Terentius Varro (De Re Rustica, I.7.7) and Gaius Plinius Secundus (Naturalis Historia, XVII.35) describe the quincunx layout as a rational and efficient planting system, while Publius Vergilius Maro, in the Georgica (Book II, lines 273–283), compares precisely aligned rows of vines and trees to “a legion drawn up for battle.” Marcus Tullius Cicero, in De Senectute (XVII.59–60), praises the harmony, symmetry, and beauty of the cultivated landscape as an expression of both human wisdom and the order of nature.

Virgilio (Ritratto di Virgilio, Vergilius Romanus (V sec. d.C.), Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Cod. Vat. lat. 3867. Fonte: Wikimedia Commons.

Agronomic innovation did not end with the quincunx. Over time, it evolved into the settonce (septuncialis) system, based on a geometric network of equilateral triangles. In practical terms, each vine was planted at an equal distance from its six nearest neighbours, allowing for a more efficient distribution of space. For this reason, agronomists came to regard the settonce as the natural evolution of the quincunx and its most refined expression. The transition from the quincunx to the settonce marks the culmination of a long tradition in which military geometry, numerical symbolism, and agricultural design converged into a single language of order, proportion, and harmony.

THE SETTONCE PROJECT

A Vineyard that defines who we are.

The alberello pugliese (Apulian bush vine) is an ancient vine-training system that has been used in Puglia since Classical antiquity. Refined over the centuries, it is ideally suited to the region’s climate and natural conditions. The vines are kept low to the ground and trained in a freestanding, bush-like shape. This reduces their exposure to strong winds and limits water loss caused by intense heat and sunlight. The system continues to be used today because it remains one of the most effective ways to help vines withstand drought, protect grape clusters from excessive heat, and produce grapes of exceptional quality.
In our Settonce vineyard, each bush-trained vine is planted at the vertex of an equilateral triangle. As a result, the vineyard’s surface is evenly divided into a pattern of regular hexagons.
More than any other planting system, this technique continues to offer a set of benefits essential to producing high-quality wines:

a high planting density;
optimal use of the soil by the vines’ root systems;
balanced vegetative growth, with every vine benefiting from an equal amount of growing space;
maximum sunlight exposure for the canopy;
improved air circulation;
simplified soil management, as the vines form rows that can be worked from multiple directions.