PLACES

Bassa langa, nobility and reserve

From Barolo to Castiglion Falletto, from La Morra to Serralunga to Monforte, what at first sight could seem simply a constellation of castles and small villages over a sky of vineyards is actually an entire universe, intimate and reserved just like the character of its inhabitants. The Langa, masterfully immortalized in the works of

Cesare Pavese and Beppe Fenoglio,  has been a shy land, with rough hands and backs always curved towards the ground, well before Barolo rightly became a superstar of the Italian wine boom. From a poor land ruined by migratory flows to industrial cities, the Langa has resurged as a land of excellences to become a UNESCO Heritage Site in 2014.

PLACES

The land of Barolo

The Langhe has been permanently inhabited by Celtic-Ligurian tribes since the fifth century BC. These tribes almost certainly introduced in the area vine cultivation, which the Greeks had spread along the Italian coasts, and Plinius the Old in his “Naturalis Historia” already talked about late-ripening and resistant to cold red grapes typical of Piedmont.

However, it was only in 1268 that the nibiol grape variety appeared for the first time in the list of wines ordered by the Castellano di Rivoli; its first description is included in the “Ruralium Commodorum” by Pier de Crescenzi (1305) where it is called nubiola; while in La Morra records, some documents dating back to 1512 talk about “nebiolium”.

It is necessary to wait for 1869 for the official presentation of Barolo, at the Turin Fair, although Count Camillo Benso di Cavour was probably the first wine grower to produce what we would consider today a real Barolo wine: 100 bottles labelled “Vino Vecchio 1844”.

Barolo and Langa, Wine and Territory: an already existing symbiosis, an interaction between landscape, society, agricultural practices and winery alchemy that has developed naturally. This way, over the time, this hilly area, sometimes sweet and sometimes steep, cold in winter but mitigated by the Ligurian winds, has generated many small magic products: hazelnuts, cured meats, cheeses, truffles and, of course, the king of Italian wines: Barolo.

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