Cascina Morassino Barbaresco, Roberto Bianco

Roberto Bianco explains his vineyards, terroir and cellar of Cascina Morassino, in Barbaresco.

Transcript:

I have almost all my vineyards here.
Here they begin, starting from that white wall over there.
Then they climb up on this hill.
There are 28 rows of plants there. This vineyard is further away.
From this vineyard further away I have the selected Barbaresco grapes.
I do not always have the best grapes in one place.
It is easy. In a hotter year I will source my best grapes from
a cooler site.
In a rainy year
vineyards on the upper sights will have the best quality grapes.
Over there there is a vineyard of Nebbiolo, with rows slightly not straight.
It is the oldest site that I have.
It was planted in 1967.
The majority of the land have fantastic soil.
White in color, the soil is poor.
Here to the right
it can be more suited for Nebbiolo, and not for Dolcetto,
because it is a bit more rich
more calcarious.
The first 30 centimeters are usually
medium rich land.
Land is important because it is in the concept of the terroir.
After the 30 cm that I told you about
there is a layer of land
that mistakenly is called tuff here.
In the local language here we say the word tuff,
but in reality it is not tuff, it is clay.
This is what you find going 2-3 meters deep.
These are the layers of clay soil.
This is not rock, but it is very solid, like iron.
Here there are all the Nebbiolo wines.
The first two are from a small local producer with a french name.
These two are from another producer,
and this producer has a Swiss name.
Oak for these barrels come from the forests
on the border between France and Germany.
This one, instead, comes from France.
From Grenier.
This is new oak.
When we buy oak barrels,
their origin is of course important.
But what is even more important
is how fine the wood is.
That is why I do not have one preference
for the origin of the oak.
Ours is one of the oldest families in Barbaresco
who bottled their own wine,
starting from around 1870.
It becomes more complicated towards the middle of the 20th century,
when my grandfather married to the daughter
of the owner of another historic winery.
So my grandfather stopped working for his own winery
and he practically moved to the winery and house of his wife's family.
She was from the Rocca family.
There were only 3 families in the area with such rich history,
and both Bianco and Rocca were among them.
Then in 1961 my family bought
this estate from my mother's parents.
And so we began producing wines here,
and we had bottling facilities in ex-Rocca estate.
It was called Bianco Alfredo and Sons (Bianco Alfredo e Figli)
which again changed the name in 1970
to Brothers Bianco Luigi and Mauro (Fratelli Bianco Luigi e Mauro)
This was my father and his brother, my uncle.
Then in 1984 the company was split
and so we started to bottle and make the wines here.
You can anyhow see that there is
one common theme among all of our wines.
Barbera, with its refined elegancy,
but also here in this glass you have this,
but also much more.
There is more body and character to it.
Here we use selected grapes from the best sights.
So in fact this Barbaresco departs from classics.
It is a classic Barbaresco, but with a twist.
First 12 months of aging in the newest oak there is.
Wine like this can actually benefit from oak that allows more penetration
that is more open and fresh
and so it avoids all the negative sides that come with it.