Antica Cascina dei Conti di Roero

Daniela and Luigi have wine and Roero in their blood. "Our idea of winemaking can be explained with one word: authenticity. They apply this concept not only to the wine production process, from the vineyard to the cellar, but also in life. The annual production of Roero Docg and sparkling wines is around 100 thousand bottles, ambassadors in the world of an authentic lifestyle, like the land and wine of the Roero.

"Both sons of farmers, both grew up among the rows of vines and wines of the Roero, they married and entered the business in the 90s. Our love for our Roero and our wine led us to believe in and bet exclusively on native vines. Nebbiolo, Arneis, Favorita and Barbera".

The wines Daniela and Luigi produce in Roero come from the 13.5 hectares of vineyards they own, in the heart of an area declared a Unesco World Heritage Site precisely because of the beauty of its wine landscapes.

In the early 1950s, the farm Antica Cascina dei Conti di Roero was run by Daniela's parents. They bought the Valmenera farmstead, today still the beating heart of the company, and combined the vineyards they owned in the municipality of Monteu Roero with other land used for orchards and cereal cultivation. In the 1970s came the turning point: driven by the desire to promote only indigenous vines such as Nebbiolo, Arneis, Favorita and Barbera, Daniela's parents changed the company to wine-only production. The arrival of Daniela and Luigi strengthened the connection with the land of Roero and resulted in the production of Roero Docg, Roero Arneis Docg and Spumanti.

The love for the land and its wines prompted Antica Cascina dei Conti di Roero to join "The Green Experience" project, led by Coldiretti of Cuneo. The Green Experience certifies the choice of sustainable viticulture characterized by the adoption of practices such as green manuring, autumn sowing of flowers and legumes and the prohibition of chemical fertilization, with the aim of protecting the land and its ancestral roots.

Two of the noblest indigenous grape varieties, Nebbiolo and Arneis, have always been grown in the Roero area and have led to wines such as Roero and Roero Arneis, both with the highest DOCG designation.

Since 2009, Antica Cascina dei Conti di Roero also produces Metodo Classico sparkling wines and adheres to the discipline The Green Experience that promotes sustainable viticulture, thanks to the application of natural techniques and the renunciation of herbicides and chemical fertilizers.

For Daniela and Luigi, making wine in the Roero means vinifying only indigenous grape varieties and all in purity. Each sip of Roero wine must bring to the palate the unique terroir, the child of millions of years of evolution. This is the idea of winemaking at Antica Cascina dei Conti di Roero.

The white wines ferment in steel until bottling, which takes place after 5-6 months.

The red wines ferment with long macerations of 30-40 days .

After malolactic fermentation, part of the wine is placed in wood: Roero Sant'Anna rests two years in barrels, Nebbiolo d'Alba 6-8 months in barriques of the second passage, Barbera d'Alba 6 months.

Cascina Valmanera, the beating heart of the company, is set in an amphitheater of rows of vines fed by millions of years-old soil, which seem to climb to the sky. A veritable staircase carved in time that Daniela and Luigi call "our Stairway to Heaven," as Led Zeppelin sang. In total, the company owns 13.5 hectares, all in the Roero municipalities of Vezza d'Alba, Monteu Roero and Canale. From these rows come the wines Roero DOCG, Roero Arneis DOCG, Barbera and Nebbiolo d'Alba Doc, Piedmont Bonarda Doc, as well as Classic Method sparkling wines.

"Luigi planted his first vineyard in 1977, at the age of 12, in the family winery in Priocca: at that moment he understood what he wanted to do," says Luigi.

"Working in the vineyard is the most beautiful job in the world. We work with vines and emotions. We like to say that our wine is made with our hands. A curiosity: between the rows are some vines planted by friends and customers who come to visit us from all over the world, from Switzerland to Sweden to America. Each vine has a sign with the name of the person who planted the cuttings.

In the Roero there was sea between 5 and 2 million years ago. During the Pliocene the soils where the shoots sprouted were formed by the sedimentation of detritus on the sea floor, and even today shells and fossil remains can be found among the rows of vines in the Roero. The Pliocene sea left a great geological richness to the hills of the Roero, affecting the soil types: calcareous marls that differ depending on the geological epoch. Soils of this type are very suitable for growing vines.

Vines and wine, but also forests, fields, hazelnut groves, meadows: all this is Roero. An area where the value of biodiversity is a unique wealth. The forests are home to precious trees, flowers and rare species of wild orchids. They are the "home" of many wild animals: deer, foxes, squirrels, badgers, hedgehogs, owls and countless other bird species. The forests of Roero are also known for the Tuber Magnatum Pico, the white truffle of Alba, a fragrant underground mushroom sought after all over the world.

The hills where Antica Cascina dei Conti di Roero produces its wines have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2014. A recognition of the beauty of the landscape that is the father of great wines, but not only. UNESCO recognizes the value of the "cultural landscape," the result of the combined action of nature and the skilled work of men and women who over the centuries have maintained the hills by growing vines and producing wine. A true "human heritage.

Made In Piedmont Wines is very grateful to Daniela and Luigi for allowing them to be their reference point for their unique Roero wines.