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ANTEO

Antonella Cribellati

The siblings Antonella and Ettore Piero Cribellati, she an art historian, he a pharmacist, had to abruptly give up their profession and switch to winemaking when their father died in 1994. When their father founded the Anteo winery in Rocca de'Giorgi, he planned to set up a larger spumante house. In fact, today the premises are oversized for the 160,000 bottles. Anteo is one of the highest estates in the Oltrepò and produces excellent Metodo Classico (70 000 bottles).

SAN GIORGIO

Guido Perdomini

Guido Perdomini is an advertising specialist in Milan; out of love for the countryside he bought the San Giorgio farm in S. Giuletta in 1978. Since then, he has continuously expanded the farm and bottled wine for the first time in 1990. "Every wine region has its certain reputation, only Oltrepò is without prestige." As with most farms here, San Giorgio's exports account for only a few percent of production. San Giorgio produces 180,000 bottles of wine from 26 hectares.

Protective Consortium

Fabio Lombardi

Fabio Lombardi has been in charge of the Oltrepò Pavese protection consortium in Broni for seven years: "Our winegrowers don't know any sales problems: Milan is a reliable sales market for our wines. This is very convenient, but it has the disadvantage that our wines remained absolutely unknown. Add to this the fact that the Milanese do not need restaurants or hotels for their day trip to our hills. Apart from the wines, which are entirely tailored to the tastes of city dwellers, the hospitality industry also remained underdeveloped in the Oltrepò."

VERDI

Paolo Verdi

The Verdi's have been winemakers for seven generations in Canneto Pavese. Paolo Verdi runs the winery with his wife, sister and mother and, as he jokes, tries not to let his wives get him down. When he had to take over the winery in 1985, when he was barely of age, practically the whole production was still sold openly. Today, Paulo bottles 90,000 bottles and vinifies grapes from 22 hectares. "Open sales are to blame for the rural exodus here. In Canneto Pavese, all hills were planted with vines in the sixties, then the small vintners first stopped pressing, later they sold their vineyards. Open wine sales don't bring a future."

BISI

Claudio Bisi

Claudio Bisi is one of those vintners who fight doggedly for reputation. The Bisi winery in San Damiano al Colle is still only bottling 70,000 bottles from 30 hectares, but the quality of the wines will certainly take the company further quickly. The sales market is northern Italy, so far no Bisi wines have been sold abroad.

DORIA

Giuseppina Sassella

Doria in Montalto Pavese exports half of the wine produced (150,000 bottles), making it an exception for the Oltrepò. Since the untimely death of her husband Adriano Doria six years ago, his widow Giuseppina Sassella has been running the business. Doria is working organically. During the past few years, the vineyard has been enlarged from eighteen to thirty hectares. As soon as the planned new cellar building is completed, it will be possible to increase the bottle production to 280,000 pieces and to reduce the sale of cask wine.

ALBANI

Riccardo Albani

Although his father works in Milan as an IT specialist, the Albani family never moved away from Casteggio. His son inherited his father's passion for winemaking, who for years commuted between computers and vineyards: Riccardo Albani never wanted to be anything other than a winemaker and for the past ten years has been looking after the eighteen hectares of vines and the cellar full-time. Albani makes admirable Bonarda (even if his most recent vintage turned out to be a bit too residual sweet). The current production amounts to 60,000 bottles, but in the next few years the open wine sales are to be reduced further and the number of bottles is to be increased to 100,000 bottles. The export share is twenty percent.

FRECCIAROSSA

Conte Pietro Calvi di Bergolo

Frecciarossa is one of the most important names of the Oltrepò. One hundred years ago, Mario Odero from Genoa purchased the stately estate, whose wines were exported to the USA as early as in the thirties. The enchantingly beautiful estate (28 hectares of wine, 80,000 bottles) is now run by Conte Pietro Calvi di Bergolo, son-in-law of the current owner. Frecciarossa "Uva Rara", a varietal wine first produced in 1999, brought unexpected commercial success and also scored an excellent "0 cm" in our JLF test (Merum 4/2002). This indigenous grape variety has wonderful aromas and drinkable roundness, but brings little colour. This disadvantage, which is decisive for today's ideas of beauty, explains the regrettable shadowy existence of the variety.

CANTINA STORICA IL MONTÙ

Riccardo Ottina

The Cantina Storica Il Montù in Montù Beccaria was founded in 1902 as a cantina sociale and continued to function as such until the 1960s. Since then the buildings have stood empty. In 1994 Riccardo Ottina, winemaker of La Versa for thirty years, acquired the large cantina with his partner Fabio Tonallini. Il Montù uses the grapes of eighty hectares and runs a distillery besides the winery. The production is 200,000 bottles, of which only five percent are exported.

BELLARIA

Paolo Massone

The grandfather still sold the wine to bottlers. His father focused on sales to private customers and increased the production to 120,000 bottles with the main emphasis on the typical frizzante based on Bonarda, Welschriesling and Pinot. Paolo Massone gave the eighteen-hectare Bellaria (Casteggio) wine estate a new direction during the past few years: He is producing as few as 60,000 bottles but at a high quality level. "Fifteen, twenty years ago, the work of the winemakers was not much different from that of the bottlers and cantine sociali. We all lived from open sales and had the same clientele. The self-marketing vintners here, however, now want to go other ways, we focus on quality and want to sell it. In order to be successful with that, we are desperately in need of recognition."

PICCHIONI

Andrea Picchioni

Andrea Picchioni is one of the top producers in the Oltrepò. His winery (7 hectares) in Canneto Pavese specializes in Buttafuoco. "The main problem for Oltrepò winemakers with quality ambitions is the lack of a common DOC wine that allows us to distinguish ourselves. Even with Buttafuoco, a frizzante version is allowed. Today, when more and more top wines are labeled as IGT rather than DOC, it's a clear signal of the state of emergency at the top of quality in our appellation." Picchioni produces 38,000 bottles and exports about a quarter of them.

LE FRACCE

Roberto Gerbino

Le Fracce is as model a winery as they come. The owner of the stately estate with forty hectares of wine in Casteggio is a foundation. The oenologist is Roberto Gerbino, an obviously gifted winemaker, whose wines are characterized by a striking elegance. Le Fracce is currently producing 180,000 bottles, 220,000 will be as soon as the new plantings will start yielding. More than five percent of the production has not yet been exported.

RUIZ DE CARDENAS

Gian Luca Ruiz de Cardenas

Gian Luca Ruiz de Cardenas is Milanese and owns an industrial company for air conditioning systems in nearby Voghera. Anyone who sees him in his wine cellar cannot imagine him as a captain of industry. His passion is the Metodo Classico and the terroir of the Oltrepò: "I find it absolutely impossible when wealthy people from the Milan economy buy a wine estate in Tuscany. Here, at the gates of Milan, is a land as beautiful as Tuscany." Ruiz de Cardenas is a disputatious wine man, he does not hold back with his critical opinion about wine guides and wine politics even in his numerous press articles. On his five hectares of vineyards in Casteggio, he produces 8000 bottles of excellent Metodo Classico. The production of 25,000 bottles is sold entirely in Italy.

LA COSTAIOLA

Michele Rossetti

La Costaiola in Montebello della Battaglia belongs to the Rossetti and Scrivani families and has 23 hectares of vineyards. Almost the entire production is bottled (200,000 bottles), open wine is hardly sold anymore. Although La Costaiola is a flourishing business, Michele Rossetti laments its fate: "I'm tired of foreign wine merchants coming to my stand at Vinitaly and saying: this one or that one recommended your business to me, I'd like to taste one of your wines One of your wines That's exactly our problem: people may know that there are quality businesses in the Oltrepò, they even know what they're called, but our wines don't have names that people remember."

CÀ DI FRARA

Luca Bellani

Luca Bellani is a real sunny boy. Likeable, charming, open, full of verve and communicative like a football reporter. Everything at Cà di Frara is very extroverted, even the labels: probably the most beautiful in the Oltrepò. The wines are also extroverted (you could also call them international): due to the undeniable quality of the grapes and the woody, polished way of making them, they are very successful. Luca (29) and his younger brother work 27 hectares, but aim to expand to 42. Thirty percent of the 270,000 bottles are exported.

MONSUPELLO

Carlo Boatti

Monsupello in Torricella Verzate is one of the highest rated farms in the Oltrepò. Carlo Boatti cultivates 48 hectares of vines and produces 300,000 bottles of wine. Boatti about the special wine cultural position of the Oltrepò: "In my early days, I also produced Dolcetto and Nebbiolo. Wine-culturally we belonged to Piedmont, politically we have been separated for 150 years, but many similarities have remained." Boatti's most important wines are Barbera vivace (90,000 bottles each) and a white, sparkling Pinot nero called "I Germogli", but in terms of quality, the Metodo Classico (40,000 bottles) and the red Pinot nero are in the foreground. Less than ten percent are exported.

AGNES

Cristiano Agnes

Sergio and Cristiano Agnes in Rovescala are Bonarda specialists. Why is Bonarda actually called Bonarda, when it is mainly made from the Croatina variety? "The confusion was caused by the vine nurseries. Here in Rovescala, it is not Croatina that is native, but the so-called Bonarda Pignolo. In other zones Barbera was common, in Montù Beccaria and Canneto Vespolina and Ughetta. Bonarda used to be the exclusive name of the wine from Rovescala, which was in fact also made from the Bonarda grape." The tasting shows that Bonarda from Rovescala does indeed have rounder tannins than Bonarda from other areas. The brothers work twelve hectares of vines and bottle 70,000 bottles, almost all Bonarda: still, aged in wood, dry and sweetly sparkling. Only small quantities go abroad via private customers.

TENUTA IL BOSCO

Oenologist Piernicola Olmound Domenico Zonin

In 1987, Zonin, national wine company with wineries throughout Italy and headquarters in Gambellara, Veneto, acquired Tenuta Il Bosco in Zenevredo. With 140 hectares of wine and a production of one million bottles, Il Bosco is the second largest winery in the Oltrepò. Domenico Zonin: "We make 750,000 bottles of Bonarda. At the end of the year, everything is sold out and our customers have to wait until the end of March for the new wine. There are no sales problems here, but there are image problems: How am I supposed to distinguish myself as a top producer with a sparkling Bonarda? In Chianti Classico and even in Sicily, this is much easier." Practically nothing is exported.

LA VERSA

Francesco Cervetti

Cantina Sociale La Versa in S. Maria della Versa is by far the most successful and well-known of the five cellar cooperatives in the Oltrepò: six million bottles, half of which are Charmat Spumante and half a million Metodo Classico. La Versa vinifies the grapes from two thousand hectares owned by its seven hundred members. Virtually nothing is exported. Francesco Cervetti, general manager of the Cantina, told me bluntly during my visit, "It will be difficult for you to write an intelligible article about a wine region where chaos reigns "

WELL DONE

Luisa and Franco Casellalinks

and I felt at home at the Ristorante "La Locanda dei Beccaria" with Luisa and Franco Casella in Montù Beccaria. Luisa, until recently an investment advisor and passionate hobby cook, works with admirable sensitivity in the kitchen. Franco, originally a doctor, serves Luisa's work to guests and recommends the right wine to go with it. The ristorante, together with a grappa distillery, is part of the Cantina Storica Il Montù building complex. The wines of the neighbour are absolutely to be recommended, at least the Metodo Classico Il Montù to the aperitif one should do for the sake of. Montù Beccaria is signposted and can be reached in fifteen minutes from the Broni-Stradella motorway exit.

The "Brunello" of the Oltrepò
Buttafuoco Storico

In 1996, a dozen or so winegrowers who wanted to make their mark with this dignified wine founded the Buttafuoco Storico Club. They gave themselves strict production rules and subjected every vineyard where "Buttafuoco Storico" is to be produced to a strict suitability test. Even if you look for the word "Storico" in vain on the labels, you can easily recognize the wines of the ambitious club members by the special bottle (see picture) and the proud price
The members are now 17, and the recognized "Storico" acreage is 35 hectares. The grapes for Buttafuoco thrive on the hill between the Scuropasso and Versa valleys. Francesco Quaquarini, president of the club, says that about 500 hectares are suitable for the Buttafuoco Storico. The production rules for the Buttafuoco Storico are: Yield maximum 4800 liters of wine/hectare; 12 months of aging in wood, prescribed storage time total 36 months.
Varietal composition of the Buttafuoco Storico: Barbera: 25%, Croatina: 50%, Uva rara: 10%, _Ughetta: 15%. (Varietal composition of Buttafuoco DOC: Barbera: 25-65%, Croatina: 25-65%, Uva rara, Pinot nero, Ughetta: up to 45%)

Buttafuoco

The name "Buttafuoco" arouses curiosity. A wine with this name promises a very special wine experience. In fact, the Buttafuoco keeps its promise. Even if oenologically not everything is right yet and expressiveness is often accompanied by rusticity, this strong red wine has a special character.
In contrast to Oltrepò Pavese Rosso and Bonarda, Buttafuoco is not a type of wine that can be produced everywhere, but a partial appellation, a limited growing zone within the DOC Oltrepò Pavese. If this were not so, one could well imagine the wine with the catchy name leading the Oltrepò wines as flagship. Understandably, however, the producers of the Buttafuoco zone jealously resist any expansion of their production area.

The Oltrepò Pavese on the WWW:

http://www.vinoltrepo.it
Official homepage of the consortium with information about the consortium, the appellation, occasions, wine routes, DOC wines.

http://www.oltrepopavese.it
Portraits of a large selection of producers, agriturismo offers, news.

http://www.buttafuocostorico.it
More about the Club del Buttafuoco Storico, the territory, the producers, the history of Buttafuoco. (In English and Italian.)

http://www.oltreweb.it
General information about the province of Pavia.

http://www.forteweb.it
General information about the province of Pavia.

The above article was kindly made available to us by the MERUM-Editorial office. Many thanks for this.

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