Continuing with our visit to Northern Italy – Barolo – one of the best-known Italian wines – are made in the village of Barolo in Piedmont. Partly because of time-constraint, we did not visit any of the famous winery, like Conterno, … and not even Renato Ratti, owner of the villa where we were staying (see earlier post here).
Instead, we visited Terredavino, at the suggestion of one of my Italian colleague. It is a super-modern top winery that services over 5,000 hectares of local vineyards cultivated by over 2,500 growers.
If we understood our winery guide correctly, Terredavino acts as a collective facility to serve local growers who may not be able to afford all the equipment to make and bottle their wines.
The growers join as members and the facility only makes DOC and DOCG regulated wines from grapes grown in Piedmont.
The winery has a shop and enoteca for tasting. I (Chris) did a quick flight of four reds and Sue just tried the Moscato d’Asti. We ended up buying several different Barolo, Barbera and Moscato D’Asti wines.
It also has a library/bookstore for literature and maps about wine-making and cuisine.
The architecture of the winery is so different from what one might expect from this very historic agricultural area. It was definitely designed to showcase itself to not just passing tourists like us, but also as we suspect, to grape growers and producers who pay to use the facility.
According to its web site:
Grapes from the largest producer members are vinified separately and the name of the original producer appears on the label. The grapes from the small producers and particular lots are blended. In this case the labels contain the titles of books by famous local authors whose works speak about the lands which produce our wines.
We were given a quick tour of the facility. This is the barrel room where the wines mature. This space is capable of containing up to 2,000 oak barriques in an area that is entirely temperature and humidity controlled.
Oak barrique-matured wines are labeled “Superiore” if I remember correctly.
This area is the bottling and automatic packaging lines with all functions carried out in a clean environment.
The winery.
Red Ferrari
We encountered a group of Ferrari owners who had just gathered at the winery for drinks and snacks. Never seen so many in one place (all different model, even some vintage).
Were they not all drinking and driving ?
Off they go, a touring caravan of Ferraris.
Ciao.
One response to “Terredavino, Cantine in Barolo”
I like the Ferrari.