Around 1000 a.c. on the San Michele hill or on the summit called Bricco Mandolone to be more precise, there lived a small community with a little church and a castle, the castle belonged to the Marquis of Montferrat.
In 1013 during the battle between the Alessandrians and Astians the castle was destroyed and the people withdrew, descending towards the river Belbo on whose banks they built the first settlements of what was to become the city of Nice Montferrat.
It is right here, in a particularly good area for producing great quality wines, there lives a family who have cared for the vines and guarded the secrets of the winery which has been handed down over 7 generations: The Berta Family.
We are a few kilometres from Langhe in an area which has recently been declared a U.N.E.S.C.O World Heritage Site and it’s here that the Berta family have been producing wines since 1842.
From the humble beginnings with two lines of Barbera the winery has grown over time, consistently achieving solid accomplishments and always highly appreciated both by the major Italian Wine Guides and international clientele.
The wines produced here follow a simple and essential philosophy: few chemicals in the vineyards, grapes always healthy and perfectly mature, spontaneous vinification and without the help of selected yeasts in the winery.
In 2001 the level of quality has yet again been improved with extensive work in the cellar with new steel vats and high performance technology.
Today Paolo Berta and Ksenia take care of the winery, together they decide the perfect moment for the harvest and take the most important decisions; from the decanting to the final bottling and obviously closing the circle with the promotion and sale of the wines they produce.
I had the pleasure of visiting the family and the estate two years ago during the tastings in Langa and I’m lucky enough to be able to taste their wines every year in my office in Tuscany.
It was great doing a virtual tasting of the new vintages this year, a year in which it would have been practically impossible to meet in the winery.
On this occasion I did the tasting with Russian professionals. We tasted the new vintages Belmon, Evolution, Valbeccara and Heritage which proved to be vibrant and well interpreted in the diverse vintages released on the market.
The oldest vineyard dates back to 1928 and is used in the production of the Heritage label which is only made from the best vintages.
The virtual tasting showed the strengths of every single label and gave much more understanding about a market in continual growth and development but in which there is still a lot to do in terms of promoting the great wines of Italy.
On this occasion I will share the Webinar which took place last December 15th during which some really important ideas and reflections came out with the professionals in the field from Moscow, most importantly Paolo and Anna, journalists for vinoitaliano.ru, Gregory, Kseniya and Natalya, chef-sommelier, sommelier for private clients and sommelier of Wine Shop respectively.
Quanto sono importanti i critici di vino in Russia? Qual è il profilo medio del consumatore di vino in Russia? Quali vini sono più conosciuti e cosa bevono i Russi?
Scoprilo guardando il video realizzato per l’occasione.
