Italy · Langhe

Cantina Nada Giuseppe

Family estate in Treiso, the highest Barbaresco commune, farming the Casot cru since 1900. The Barbaresco Casot is 100% Nebbiolo, fermented with ambient yeasts, aged in decades-old untoasted oak, and needs years in the cellar before it opens.

The producer

In the village of Treiso, the highest and smallest of the three communes in the Barbaresco production zone, the Nada family has farmed the same hillside parcel for 126 years. The cru is called Casot. On 27 March 1900, a Nada ancestor purchased it from the Gaja estate, a transaction that anchors the house's claim to one of the oldest continuously owned addresses in the appellation. For six decades the family sold their grapes in bulk. Estate bottling began in 1964, in the old Casot farmhouse. The cellar expanded from 1968 onward. Today the estate produces roughly 50,000 bottles a year across a range that runs from Barbaresco to a white blend and, unexpectedly, a Riesling.

Enrico Nada became cellar master in 2008 after graduating from enology school and made two consequential changes. He eliminated sulphite additions during fermentation, maceration, and malolactic conversion, letting the fruit and tannin carry without chemical buffering. He also planted Riesling, which had no serious precedent in the Langhe, and it succeeded. The aging vessels are large, untoasted Slavonian and Allier oak barrels maintained over decades: no new wood, no flavour transfer, only slow oxidative management across the long cellar time. The Barbaresco Casot, the estate's central wine, needs six to eight years from bottling before it opens and can develop for twenty-five to thirty.

Known for

Barbaresco Casot, single-cru Nebbiolo from the family's historic Treiso parcel

Notable facts

The story

The Date Written Down

On 27 March 1900, a Nada ancestor sealed a deal on a steep hillside parcel in the cru of Casot in Treiso. The seller was the Gaja estate. The date is written down. The Nada family farmed that parcel from that point on, growing Nebbiolo on the same calcareous slope that Gaja had once owned, as neighbours to one of the most debated names in Piedmont wine. For sixty-four years they sold the grapes in bulk. Then, in 1964, working out of the old Casot farmhouse with the tools they had, the family started bottling their own wine under the Nada Giuseppe name. The vineyard purchased from Gaja in 1900 became the label. It still is.

From the atlas

Cantina Nada Giuseppe

At A Glance

LocationTreiso, Barbaresco DOCG, Piedmont, Italy
GrapeNebbiolo (Barbaresco), Arneis, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling
FlagshipBarbaresco Casot
Production~50,000 bottles annually
Cellar masterEnrico Nada (from 2008)
VineyardsCasot cru, Treiso (owned since 1900)

The Producer

In the village of Treiso, the highest and smallest of the three communes in the Barbaresco production zone, the Nada family has farmed the same hillside parcel for 126 years. The cru is called Casot. The family purchased it on 27 March 1900 from the Gaja estate, a transaction that anchors the house's claim to one of the oldest continuously owned addresses in the appellation.

For six decades the family sold their grapes in bulk. Estate bottling began in 1964, in the old Casot farmhouse. The cellar expanded from 1968 onward. Today the estate produces roughly 50,000 bottles a year across a range that runs from Barbaresco to a white blend and, unexpectedly, a Riesling.

Enrico Nada became cellar master in 2008 after graduating from enology school. He is the generation that made the house's winemaking legible to a contemporary palate: not by softening the Nebbiolo or reaching for new oak, but by removing sulphite additions during fermentation, maceration, and malolactic conversion, letting the fruit and tannin speak without chemical buffering.

Place

Treiso sits at the southern edge of the Barbaresco triangle, higher and cooler than the village of Barbaresco itself or the commune of Neive to the north. That elevation shapes the ripening curve: Nebbiolo picks up later, holds more acidity, and develops a darker, drier fruit profile than lower-lying Barbaresco vineyards. The wines carry more grip and take longer to open.

The Casot cru occupies a steep hillside within Treiso. Steep slopes in Piedmont mean poor, thin soil, natural drainage, and concentrated fruit from vines that work hard. The parcel has no irrigation and no history of heavy intervention. These are the physical conditions that give Barbaresco from this address its particular character: taut, dark, and slow to give.

The Barbaresco DOCG covers roughly 700 hectares across the three communes. A Treiso label on a bottle tells you where on that map you are standing: higher, cooler, and in a cru that has been in the same hands for more than a century.

Soil And Site

The Casot vineyard is a steep hillside parcel in Treiso on the Tortonian soils typical of the Barbaresco zone: compacted calcareous marl and clay. These soils drain slowly after rain, hold minerals well, and contribute the mineral undercurrent and tight tannin that mark Nebbiolo from this part of the Langhe. The altitude and aspect of Casot are not specified in available records, but its position in Treiso places it among the higher parcels in the appellation.

Story

The first sixty-four years of Nada ownership were unremarkable in the sense that most Piedmontese farmers lived them: grapes grown, grapes sold, someone else's label on the wine. Then, in 1964, the estate started bottling. The decision was modest in execution, made in the ancient Casot farmhouse with whatever equipment the family could manage, but it was a commitment to a name: Nada Giuseppe, on a Barbaresco from a cru that Gaja had once owned.

The cellar grew from 1968. A generation passed. When Enrico Nada arrived as cellar master in 2008, the bones of the estate were already in place: old Slavonian and Allier oak vessels, no new wood, long maceration, a parcel with a century of family memory. Enrico did not dismantle any of that. He removed sulphite additions at every stage where they had been used as a safeguard: fermentation, maceration, malolactic conversion. He kept reduced additions only during aging, where the wine needs some protection during the long time it spends in large casks before bottling.

The effect on the Barbaresco is not dramatic in the way of a stylistic overhaul. The wine still ages for years in large oak. It still needs six to eight years from bottling before it opens. The difference is in the fruit: unmasked, direct, and carrying the full register of what Nebbiolo grown in Casot actually tastes like.

Enrico also planted Riesling, which had no serious precedent in this part of Piedmont. It succeeded.

Vineyards And Cellar

The Casot vineyard is farmed for Nebbiolo, the only grape permitted in Barbaresco DOCG. Enrico works without added sulphites during the critical intervention points: alcoholic fermentation runs with ambient yeasts only, maceration proceeds without sulphite addition, and malolactic conversion follows the same rule. Sulphites are used at reduced levels only during the aging phase.

In the cellar, the vessels are large, untoasted Slavonian and Allier oak barrels and vats maintained over decades. Untoasted means no charring of the inner stave surface: the wood does not contribute vanilla, caramel, or toast flavour to the wine. Old vessels mean the oak is spent as a flavour donor. The function of the wood is oxidative management and slow micro-oxygenation over a long aging period, not flavour addition. The Barbaresco has no wood character in the glass.

The Langhe Bianco Armonia is fermented and aged on lees, which accounts for the bread crust and yeast character that rises from the glass. The Riesling sits in the range as Enrico's experiment that held.

Wines

The range runs to five or six wines and stays rooted in the single commune. Barbaresco Casot is the flagship: 100% Nebbiolo from the family's historic parcel, fermented with ambient yeasts, aged in large untoasted oak, and released only when the estate considers it ready. It carries dark red fruit flanked by spice, dried flowers, and a balsamic thread, with tannins and a persistent finish. The estate puts optimal expression at six to eight years from bottling, with further development possible to twenty-five or thirty years. This is a wine for a cellar, not an impulse purchase.

A second Barbaresco cru sits in the range alongside Casot. Like Casot it is 100% Nebbiolo and follows the same large-oak aging regime.

The Langhe Rosso is a Nebbiolo-based red under the broader Langhe DOC, likely drawing from younger vines. It offers an earlier entry into the house style without the cellaring requirement of the crus.

Langhe Bianco Armonia is a blend of Arneis and Sauvignon Blanc, pale straw in colour with golden reflections, and a nose of floral aromatics, yeast, and bread crust from lees contact. The palate is rich, savory, and fresh. Arneis is the native white grape of the Roero, the sandy hills across the Tanaro river from the Langhe; Sauvignon Blanc is a Bordeaux variety planted here in a minority role. The blend is unconventional for the zone and sits apart from the estate's Nebbiolo wines.

The estate also produces a Riesling, which Enrico planted as an experiment. At Treiso's elevation and in its cooler microclimate, the variety found conditions that suited it. A sparkling wine completes the range.

In The Glass

The Barbaresco Casot begins with dark red fruit, a thread of dried flowers, and a faint balsamic note that deepens as the wine opens. Spice appears alongside the fruit rather than dominating it. In the mouth the tannins are firm but finely grained, a product of long maceration on Nebbiolo fruit without sulphite interference and without the softening effect of new oak. The finish is persistent. There is no vanilla, no toast, no oak sweetness: the large untoasted casks leave the fruit and the grape's own bitterness in the foreground.

The Armonia white moves differently. Floral aromatics and bread crust lift from the glass; on the palate the wine is rich and savory, with freshness from its acidity cutting through the texture built by lees aging. Arneis contributes the floral lift, Sauvignon Blanc the savory mid-palate drive.

Across the range, the house style holds: low intervention, old oak, and wines that carry the character of their site and grape without added flavour.

A Bottle To Understand It

Barbaresco Casot is where the estate's full argument lives. It is 100% Nebbiolo from the Casot vineyard in Treiso, fermented with ambient yeasts and no added sulphites, and aged in large, untoasted, decades-old oak that leaves no flavour of its own in the wine. It shows dark red fruit, firm tannin, dried flowers, spice, and balsamic depth on a finish that does not drop. Open it at six years from the vintage at earliest. At eight it is more itself. Buy two bottles if you can: one now to understand where it is going, one in a decade to understand where it arrived.

Anecdote

On 27 March 1900, a Nada ancestor sealed a deal on a steep hillside parcel in the cru of Casot in Treiso. The seller was the Gaja estate. The date is written down. The Nada family farmed that parcel from that point on, growing Nebbiolo on the same calcareous slope that Gaja had once owned, as neighbours to one of the most debated names in Piedmont wine. For sixty-four years they sold the grapes in bulk. Then, in 1964, working out of the old Casot farmhouse with the tools they had, the family started bottling their own wine under the Nada Giuseppe name. The vineyard they had purchased from Gaja in 1900 became the label. It still is.

Final Word

Cantina Nada Giuseppe is a small family estate that has farmed the same hillside for 126 years and made wine under its own name for sixty of them. The Barbaresco Casot needs time, repays patience, and carries no flavours that did not come from the grape and the place. Enrico Nada's generation removed the last interventions that stood between the wine and the vineyard. What is in the bottle now is Treiso, Nebbiolo, and the Casot cru, as directly as this appellation gets.

Sources

Open Cantina Nada Giuseppe in the interactive map →