The Wines of Langa – between Tradition and Innovation
When we asked Marco and Marta from Cascina Albano (Barbaresco) to tell us about their wine production in the Langhe, they began as follows: “Tasting our wines we feel like we are drinking our vineyards, we say it with pride because it has always been the aim of our cellar.” It seems very interesting to us! So, let’s give them the stage and let them guide us through their world.
Cascina Albano, in fact, was born in a different way: despite being in Barbaresco we do not vinify the famous Nebbiolo grape which will then give rise to that noble wine. For us this aspect has always been a possibility and not a limit. In fact, it gave us the opportunity to dedicate ourselves to the other varieties typical of the area.
By combining tradition and innovation, we try to capture every nuance of the area through our products….but we believe in our philosophy and in our techniques both ancestral and innovative at the same time
Arneis, Dolcetto, Barbera and Freisa are our grapes, all vinified in purity and each following different vinification methods to enhance their most characteristic features. By combining tradition and innovation, we try to capture every nuance of the area through our products. It certainly makes us a winery a little bit out of the ordinary, but we believe in our philosophy and in our techniques both ancestral and innovative at the same time.
Would you like an example of innovation? From the creative mind of the young Marco in 2007 our Classic Method “Perschers” was born. A production that, as the name implies, was born “as a joke” (“per scherzo” in Italian), out of curiosity to see how our most cultivated white variety, Arneis, would be expressed in the form of a sparkling wine.
Marco chooses to produce a Classic Method Brut Nature with an aging on the lees of at least 48 months, which guarantees him an incredible body and expressiveness. A glass of Perschers is enough to perceive the characteristics of the soil in which it grows and the potential of a very multifaceted variety. It was a joke that we liked and that amazes all those who have the opportunity to taste it.
Marco chooses to produce a Classic Method Brut Nature with an aging on the lees of at least 48 months, which guarantees him an incredible body and expressiveness
We are sure that our grandfather Marco would also have liked it very much, who had decided to produce his wines with the aim of enhancing the characteristics of the terroirs and local varieties in the best possible way.
If you ask Natale, second generation of the winemaker’s family, he will tell you that even if at first, he was a bit skeptical, he was happy to have believed in the project and now he finds it “pröpi bun”, really good in the local Piedmont dialect. The desire to experiment has been handed down to us by him who in the 90s took over the reins of the company trying to innovate and keep up with the times, without ever distorting the personality of the wines. His innovation was above all in the wine cellar, trying to put new knowledge and technologies at the service of the production process, and not vice versa.
Our Classic method is just an example, but all our wines fully represent the style of our winery. We are aware that we have an organism as an ally that must be preserved and enhanced.
Safeguarding the territory and its purity by taking inspiration from natural and biological techniques, we obtain healthy fruits from which it is possible to create wines that best describe the area they belong to. To give them full expression, even in the wine cellar the processes follow the principles of naturalness. Attention is paid to the production process which is assisted and supported at every stage.
Fermentations with indigenous yeasts, thoughtful use of technologies and targeted interventions respecting the most favorable lunar phases, allow our wines to be born and evolve in a relaxed way and have a strength and an expressiveness that every year amazes even us who have been producing them for several generations.
This result would certainly not have been possible without the experience handed down to us by our grandfather and our father who, enriched with the knowledge of our generation, allowed us to understand that ancestral methods and modern innovations are not enemies, but allies that, if used in a thoughtful way, they allow you to get the best out of the raw material.
Fermentations with indigenous yeasts, thoughtful use of technologies and targeted interventions respecting the most favorable lunar phases, allow our wines to be born and evolve in a relaxed way and have strength and expressiveness
Not only being producers, but being a family of producers has allowed us to grow up running and playing among the grapevines near home, which have always been grown and cared for in a responsible way, has given us the opportunity to go down to the wine cellar and smell the scents of winemaking, listening and learning the importance of enhancing each variety by producing expressive and artisanal wines and above all it has made us develop perhaps what most distinguishes us: the passion for this world and this work. Unconditional love for our wines is the driving force that pushes us to always improve and evolve and not to give up in the face of daily challenges.
Cascina Albano was born from the passion of our grandfather and continues to live and grow because in us there is the same desire to make our wines known through the purest expressions, always with an eye to the future.
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