Barbera d’Asti grapes
We are looking at the native Piedmontese wine variety par excellence. Its origins are so ancient that the first written reference to it is a document dating back to 1609. Preserved in the Council of Nizza Monferrato, it describes how at the time special envoys of the Duke of Mantua used to come to Nizza “de la Paglia” to buy Barbera wine.
Nowadays it’s the most grown grape in Piedmont, covering a total surface of 50,000 hectares and accounting for 35 % of the entire wine production. Due to its quality and thanks to Piedmontese immigrants, this variety has spread to practically every wine-growing zone in the world.
We are talking about an extremely versatile vine. In fact, according to the different production areas, wine-growing and cultivation techniques, it is possible to create all sorts of qualities. By using Barbera grapes we can obtain highly-flavoured rosé, lively or whole-meal wines, as well as others that are the result of a long-ageing treatment carried out in different manners.
This is the origin of an incredible amount of DOC and DOCG wines.
As testified by the ancient document mentioned above, Barbera expresses its very best qualities in the Nizza Monferrato area. Therefore a special DOCG has been dedicated to our territory, and to a wine that proudly stands for its worldwide appreciation: The Nizza DOCG.
