Cascina Val del Prete

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This site will guide you in the discovery of our winery, our territory, and the wines we produce.

Since 1977 we have dedicated our care to the vineyards located in the municipality of Priocca, a small village in the territory of Roero, a land of steep slopes where still vines and hazelnuts give way to forest flaps creating a lovely bucolic landscape and preserving biodiversity , true treasure of these lands.

“Then to the north I met Priocca and near Priocca I was silently surprised to admire an amphitheatre of vineyard that repays the look and refreshes the traveler. One of many you will tell me. It is true, I answer, but if you understand the history, if you put the woods around it or meet the peasants, today as then you will measure the difference; you will be invested by an intimate story as instructive, strong as are the having known the fatigue, poverty and the countryside- proofs of life that teach to walk with the eyes of righteousness- and then that amphitheatre of vineyard, and that farmhouse in the middle, ac they will be much more thick, such as archetype or teaching.”

Fernardo Pardini – Acquabuona (2002)

“Valley of the Priest”, a name from ancient origins. The story goes that around 1850 the walls of the farmhouse were inhabited by Abbot Felice de Grèsy forced into exile.

However, the first reports date back a hundred years, when the farmhouse was owned by the Countess of Cornegliano Adelaide Cristina Perez Binelli, wife of Paolo Giuseppe Giza Asinari de Grèsy.

From then on the estate was passed down by inheritance until 1977, when it was purchased by Bartolomeo Roagna of Priocca d’Alba, at the time a sharecropper on behalf of the de Grèsy family. Although in those days there was the phenomenon of emigration and abandonment of the countryside, Bartolomeo, together with his wife Carolina and children, believing in the potential of these lands, decided to plant his first vineyards of Barbera and Nebbiolo in the amphitheater in front of the farmhouse, allocating the production to the sale of grapes and bulk wine. He also devoted the remaining part of the land to the cultivation of peaches, and the flat arable land, from which to seize the sustenance for the calves raised in the stable of the farm.

His wits, dedication and intuition assisted him, and over the years they allowed him to expand the property, buying other neighboring land to be used as a vineyard. It was in this way that helped by his sons he planted the variety Arneis, native Roero vine, which had recently returned to the limelight.

Only in 1995 his son Mario, supported by his wife Maria Carla, took over the reins of the company, deciding to subscribe to fruit growing and breeding, dedicating himself exclusively to viticulture and the production of quality wines. From then on he chose to go down the path of natural agriculture and to bottle the entire wine production. Since 2013, the current 10 hectares of vineyards cultivated in Arneis, Barbera and Nebbiolo are certified organic.

Time flies, and since 2010 his son Giovanni took part in the family business bringing a fresh breath of enthusiasm into the production process.

Making wine, on these hills, is an ancient craft. Already the Romans produced and vinified in these territories, and they did so with rudimentary technologies. Of course, the resulting wines were completely different from what we’re used to now. Nowadays technology can assist us in producing quality wines, but on one point there is no doubt: quality is made in the vineyard.

For this reason, for more than twenty years now we have chosen natural agriculture: good wine starts from healthy grapes with incomparable sensory characteristics, and the only way to obtain them is to understand the context. Nature rewards us when we know how to respect it, and that is why it is essential to learn to understand the infinite mystery that surrounds us. The right dosage of manure, the wise use of soves and the correct management of soil processing are just some of the practices that guide us on our path to the expression of the territory. Balanced prunings, meticulous management of the vegetation and meticulous management of production lead to the obtaining of grapes that already contain a concentrate of terroir, but it must be taken care of, taking care to preserve the varietal characteristics. The manual collection allows us to make a sorting of the best clusters, obtaining the best quality of the musts.

The practice of winery is not interventionist: to allow the wines to express their full potential the fermentations are carried out mainly through the use of indigenous yeasts, depending on the vintage the macerations last from 25 to 30 days, to allow the musts to extract more aromatic compounds and color. At the end of the alcoholic fermentation the wines are pressed up to 0.8 bar. They are then transfused into steel tanks where they carry out the malolactic fermentation on the lees, and at the end of the malolatic, once clear, they are transferred in wood, where they stay for a period ranging from a few months for the early drinking wines , up to 3 years for the Roero Riserva.

The entirety of the company’s 10 hectares of vineyards is located in the municipality of Priocca: most of the parcels are located on the hill that stands behind the farm, in the MGA “Madonna of Graces”, while the remaining part is located on the hill of Bricco Cats, in the MGA “Cascinotto”.

Since 1995 we have chosen to manage our vineyards according to the dictates of natural agriculture, a set of good practices that helps to lower the environmental impact and increase the vitality of the soil, in addition of course to the quality of the wines.

The herb: help against erosion and fertility builder

The vineyards remain upright all year round: this helps us to avoid the phenomenon of erosion, very frequent on these loose and draining soils, and to slow down the washing of nutrients, which are absorbed by herbaceous varieties during growth and again transferred to the ground as a result of the mowing. To preserve the herbaceous varieties most useful to viticulture, the flowering is carefully observed, so that they are cut only when the seeds mature, so that the herbs can proliferate in the following years. For this reason the mowing is carried out only 2 times during the year, so that it can propagate as many herbaceous species as possible. Diversity becomes a key to both pest management and improving soil fertility, as each herb with different characteristics brings different elements and thus increases the number of organic compounds that the screws will have to Available. This allows us to make fertilizes only with mature manure, and only once every 5-6 years.