Italy · Roero

Antica Cascina dei Cinti di Roero

Roero estate working with Favorita, the sandy left-bank white grape that rarely travels beyond the Tanaro valley, plus a crusty-bread sparkling rosé and a Nebbiolo riserva from the named Sant'Anna vineyard.

The producer

Antica Cascina dei Cinti di Roero sits in Vezza d'Alba, on the Roero DOC, the left bank of the Tanaro river in Piemonte. The Tanaro divides Roero's sandy, marine-origin soils from the Langhe's limestone hills across the water, where Barolo and Barbaresco have long held the market's attention. On this side, the estate works with Favorita, a native white grape grown almost exclusively in Roero, fermenting it slowly at 13 to 14 degrees Celsius with no skin contact and ageing it four months in stainless steel. The approach preserves the grape's aromatic lift: straw yellow in colour, white flowers and fresh fruit on the nose, dry and clean in the glass.

The range extends to a Spumante Brut Rosé, brilliant soft pink with fine persistent bubbles, a savoury nose of crusty bread alongside cherry and rose, and firm acidity in the mouth. Vigna Sant'Anna Riserva is the estate's red, a Nebbiolo from the named Sant'Anna vineyard that opens ruby red with garnet reflections deepening as the bottle ages. The estate sits within the UNESCO World Heritage core zone covering the Langhe, Monferrato and Roero hills.

Known for

Cold-fermented Favorita from Roero's sandy left-bank soils, plus a savoury sparkling rosé and a single-vineyard Nebbiolo riserva.

Notable facts

The story

The Grape the River Left Behind

Favorita grew on the Roero bank of the Tanaro for centuries without attracting much outside attention. The grape was suited to the sandy soils and produced reliably, but it moved mostly into bulk channels and onto local tables rather than into bottle under a producer's name. Across the river, Barolo and Barbaresco were building international reputations; Favorita stayed a local matter. When Roero producers began bottling it formally under the Langhe Favorita DOC and working deliberately to preserve its aromatic character through cold fermentation and no skin contact, they were doing something that carried real commercial uncertainty: insisting that a purely local white grape deserved the same technical care as the varieties that had already found their audience. An estate fermenting Favorita at 13 to 14 degrees with no skin time and four months in neutral steel is the practical outcome of that insistence, carried out quietly in the cellar each vintage.

From the atlas

Antica Cascina dei Cinti di Roero

At A Glance

The Producer

Antica Cascina dei Cinti di Roero is an estate in Vezza d'Alba, on the Roero DOC, the sandy left bank of the Tanaro river in Piemonte. The Tanaro separates Roero from the Langhe hills across the water, where Barolo and Barbaresco have long absorbed most of the attention. On the Roero side, the soils are different, the grape choices are different, and the wines follow accordingly.

The estate sits inside the UNESCO World Heritage core zone that takes in the Langhe, Monferrato and Roero hills together. The range runs from a still white made from Favorita, a grape native to this bank, through a rosé sparkling wine, to a Nebbiolo riserva from the named Vigna Sant'Anna vineyard.

Place

Roero is the left-bank appellation, separated from the Langhe by the Tanaro. Where the Langhe rests on Helvetian limestone and Tortonian marls, Roero sits on sandy soils of marine origin, lighter in texture and more permeable. That difference in ground shows in the grapes: Nebbiolo grown on Roero's sandy soils tends toward brighter acidity and earlier aromatic release than the denser, slower-maturing versions from Serralunga or La Morra across the river.

Favorita, the estate's white anchor, is almost entirely a Roero grape. It has a formal legal home in the Langhe Favorita DOC, which allows the appellation name to appear on the label, but production is concentrated here rather than distributed across Piemonte. The sandy, mineral soils suit the variety's aromatic character, and the cooler fermentation temperatures used at this estate preserve those aromatics further into the bottle.

Vezza d'Alba is one of the Roero communes. The UNESCO designation covers the whole hill system and reflects the exceptional density of vine-growing landscape, but it carries no implication about wine style or cellar method.

Soil And Site

Roero's sandy marine soils drain freely and warm quickly in spring, which pulls ripening forward relative to the clay-heavier Langhe. For a white grape like Favorita, this describes fruit development in summer heat with enough sand-driven drainage to avoid water stress. Nebbiolo on sandy ground at Vigna Sant'Anna produces a wine with ruby core and garnet edges that deepen as the bottle ages, a colour shift that signals the tannin evolution expected from a riserva-category red.

Story

Roero spent decades in the shadow of its more famous neighbour across the Tanaro. Barolo and Barbaresco defined Piemonte in foreign markets; Roero remained largely a local matter. The Favorita grape, native to this bank, was rarely exported and rarely explained to anyone outside the region. An estate committed to Favorita as a serious still white was making a bet on a grape that most wine buyers had never encountered.

The Spumante Brut Rosé extended the range into sparkling territory, where the estate's production approach, low temperatures, preserved aromatics, firm acidity, finds a natural second expression. Vigna Sant'Anna anchors the red side of the range and carries the designation of a named single vineyard, which in Piemonte signals a commitment to site specificity rather than a blended appellation bottling.

Vineyards And Cellar

Favorita is harvested and pressed softly, with no maceration on the skins. Skin contact would extract phenolic grip and colour and push the wine toward a richer, more textural style; the choice to press directly and keep no skin time is a decision to stay with the grape's natural aromatic lift rather than build body through extraction.

Fermentation runs slowly at 13 to 14 degrees Celsius. Low-temperature fermentation extends the process and captures volatile aroma compounds that faster, warmer fermentation would lose to the atmosphere. The floral and fruit character of Favorita arrives in the glass at higher intensity than a quick ambient-temperature ferment would allow.

After fermentation, the wine spends four months in stainless steel tanks before bottling. Stainless steel adds nothing to the wine and takes nothing away: no oak tannin, no vanilla, no toasty character. The four months allow the wine to settle and integrate without any flavour contribution from the vessel.

Wines

The Langhe Favorita is a pale, floral still white. In the glass it shows straw yellow with greenish highlights, and the nose carries fresh fruit and white summer flowers, the typical aromatic signature of a cold-fermented Favorita with no skin contact. The wine is dry, light-bodied and built around freshness rather than weight.

The Spumante Brut Rosé is a sparkling wine with a brilliant soft pink colour and fine, persistent perlage. The nose opens with an unusual combination: crusty bread alongside cherry and rose. That bread note points toward secondary fermentation or lees contact in the production method. In the mouth the wine is fresh and savoury, with notable acidity that keeps the mousse feeling taut rather than soft.

Vigna Sant'Anna Riserva is the estate's top red. The grape is Nebbiolo, the variety behind Barolo and Barbaresco, grown here at the named Sant'Anna vineyard in Roero. The wine opens ruby red with garnet reflections that deepen as the bottle ages, the colour change that marks Nebbiolo's tannin slowly giving way to more developed, tertiary character over time. As a riserva-designated bottling, it spends longer in ageing than the standard category requires.

In The Glass

The Langhe Favorita rises from the glass with white flowers and light summer fruit, pear and citrus blossom rather than stone fruit weight. On the palate it is dry and lightly textured, with the freshness that cold fermentation and stainless ageing build into the wine. The finish is clean and short, with the floral note persisting.

The Spumante Brut Rosé opens differently: the crusty bread note sits above the cherry and rose rather than beneath them, giving the nose a savoury dimension that sets it apart from a simple fruit-forward sparkling rosé. In the mouth the acidity is firm, the mousse fine rather than coarse, and the overall feel is taut and food-friendly rather than sweet or soft.

Vigna Sant'Anna Riserva in its younger expression shows the firm, drying tannin that Nebbiolo always carries, with the garnet colour edging in at the rim. With age, those tannins soften and the garnet deepens through the whole glass.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with the Langhe Favorita. It is a direct argument for what Roero white wine can be: a native grape, fermented cold with no skin contact, aged in neutral stainless steel for four months, bottled pale and floral. There is no oak character, no phenolic grip, no residual sweetness. What arrives in the glass is Favorita's own aroma profile, preserved by low-temperature fermentation and amplified by the absence of anything that would cover it. The wine is light, dry and immediate, and it explains both the grape and the production approach in a single pour.

Anecdote

Favorita has been grown on the Roero bank of the Tanaro for centuries, but for most of that time it travelled no further than local tables and bulk-wine channels. The grape was useful and productive, suited to the sandy soils, but it generated little interest outside Piemonte and no serious market beyond the towns along the river. When producers in Roero began bottling it under formal appellation labels and working deliberately to preserve its aromatic character through cold fermentation, they were not reviving a forgotten treasure so much as insisting, against some commercial logic, that a purely local variety deserved the same technical attention as the famous grapes across the water. The Langhe Favorita DOC formalised that insistence. An estate like Antica Cascina dei Cinti di Roero, making its Favorita with no skin contact and a slow cold ferment, is the practical expression of that argument carried out in the cellar.

Final Word

Antica Cascina dei Cinti di Roero works from the left bank of the Tanaro with a white grape that is almost nowhere else. The Favorita's cold fermentation and neutral ageing give it a clean aromatic focus; the Spumante Brut Rosé adds breadth with its savoury, cherry-tinged mousse; and Vigna Sant'Anna Riserva plants Nebbiolo firmly in Roero ground. The estate works with Favorita, Spumante Brut Rosé and Vigna Sant'Anna Riserva in Roero.

Sources

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