Montalbera

WINERY FOR VINIFICATION

Photo: Founder, Enrico Riccardo Morando

Montalbera Wine Enterprise

The Azienda Agricola Montalbera (Montalbera Wine Enterprise) was started at the beginning of the 20th century in an area situated among the towns of Grana, Castagnole Monferrato and Montemagno in the "former" Monferrato, the land of great hope and promises. Tracing the origins of the name Montalbera is difficult, but it almost certainly refers to the wooded areas and gentle hills surrounding the estate. Midway through the 1980s the Morando family, owner of the company, adopted a policy of expansion that has still not been completed, with the acquisition of the surrounding lands and the direct planting of new vineyards, predominately Ruché. Currently Montalbera is one of the most technologically advanced wineries in the world and consequently it is capable of skillfully interpreting the fruits offered by the land every year while respecting the millenarian traditions of the territory. The result of our expansion allows us to declare that approximately 55% of the Ruché di Castagnole Monferrato and about 12% of the Grignolino d'Asti produced worldwide flows from the wineries of Montalbera in Castagnole Monferrato.

Today Montalbera has two wineries, the first in Castagnole Monferrato (Monferrato) one tract of land amounting to ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY hectares acknowledged for the production of "Principe Rosso del Monferrato" the native Ruché; its second winery is in Castiglione Tinella (Langa), in the San Carlo area, the birthplace of the family's forbearer Enrico Riccardo; and it consists of FIFTEEN hectares all on one tract of land under Moscato d'Asti vines.

It is rare in Piedmont for a company to have one winery in Monferrato and another in Langa.

Our foremost production philosophy is the concept of "wine as a fruit" and we acclaim the great characteristics of the vineyards by harvesting the grapes when they are slightly overripe. Moreover our work method in the vineyard is particularly attentive and atypical.

"The dream of all the past generations regarding wine was to obtain the best grapes possible from the cultivation and turn them into wine without ruining or altering the legacy of tastes and aromas synthesized by the nature of the fruit. The next step is to vinify this fruit without wasting one ounce of its native value". (Preface by Luca Maroni to the book: Le buone pratiche per la vinificazione e la conservazione dei vini [Best Practices for the Vinification and Storage of Wines]. - Louis Oudart - First published in 1877 by the Royal Academy of Agriculture of Turin).

Beyond revolutions and evolutions of enological techniques, disappearances and rebirths, one must always remember that the symphony of fragrances, the enchantment of flavors, the miracle of harmony dictated by a great wine are all compensation for the meticulous work in the vineyard and wine cellar and the remarkable talent in interpreting an enology that combines tradition with innovation, attentive to the new tastes of modern demanding consumers.

We can never be happy enough to see an increase in the number of wine aficionados and connoisseurs won over by the pleasurable flavors of the wines created by Montalbera.

Italiano