Italy · Langhe

Cascina Corte

Organic estate on the San Luigi hills outside Dogliani, farming Dolcetto, Nebbiolo and indigenous Piemontese varieties with no added yeasts, no filtration, and an amphora range launched in 2015.

The producer

Amalia and Sandro spent years looking through the hills around Dogliani before they found what they wanted: an eight-hectare farm on the San Luigi hills, a few kilometres outside the town, with a stone farmhouse and vineyards that had sat empty for more than three decades. They bought it in 2001, began restoring it the following year, and inherited something worth keeping. The previous farmers told them the Dolcetto vines had been planted immediately after the Second World War and yielded small crops of high-quality grapes. Amalia and Sandro reorganised the parcels rather than replanting and built the estate around those old vines. Organic certification came in 2005, three years after they applied.

The cellar adds as little as possible: no commercial yeasts, no filtration, no clarification, minimal sulphur. In 2003 they planted Barbera and Nebbiolo on plots in front of the house, broadening production beyond Dolcetto, and the range has since grown to include Nascetta, Riesling, Freisa and Pinot Nero. In 2015 they added a separate amphora program using 850-litre Tuscan terracotta vessels, covering four wines: Langhe Nascetta, Langhe Barbera, Langhe Nebbiolo and Dogliani Superiore Pirochetta. The estate stays small, hands-on, and unambiguously rooted in Dogliani.

Known for

Dolcetto di Dogliani from post-war vines; amphora Nascetta, Barbera, Nebbiolo and Dogliani Superiore.

Notable facts

The story

The Birthday Amphorae

In 2015 Sandro turned sixty. Instead of a conventional celebration, he and Amalia bought two Tuscan terracotta amphorae and filled them with wine as an experiment. The results surprised them. The amphorae, each holding 850 litres, produced wines that were different in texture and depth from anything the cellar had made before: no wood flavour, no fining, the grape fully present. They bought more vessels. What started as a birthday curiosity became a parallel production line covering four wines: Langhe Nascetta Amphorae Cecilia, Langhe Barbera, Langhe Nebbiolo and Dogliani Superiore Pirochetta. The terracotta vessels now sit alongside the oak casks as a permanent part of the cellar.

From the atlas

Cascina Corte

At A Glance

Producer: Cascina Corte Type: Organic estate Location: San Luigi hills, Dogliani, Cuneo province, Piemonte Key Grapes: Dolcetto, Nebbiolo, Barbera, Nascetta, Pinot Nero, Freisa, Riesling Appellations: Dogliani DOC, Dogliani Superiore DOCG, Langhe DOC Farming: Certified organic since 2005 Cellar: No added yeasts, no filtration, no clarification, minimal sulphur

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The Producer

Amalia and Sandro spent years looking through the hills around Dogliani before they found what they wanted: an eight-hectare farm on the San Luigi hills, a few kilometres outside the town, with a stone farmhouse and vineyards that had sat empty for more than three decades. They bought it in 2001 and began restoring it the following year.

What they inherited alongside the house was already worth keeping. The previous farmers told them the Dolcetto vines had been planted immediately after the Second World War and yielded small crops of high-quality grapes. Amalia and Sandro reorganised the parcels rather than replanting and built the estate around those old vines. Organic certification came in 2005, three years after they applied.

Cascina Corte is based at Borgata Valdiberti 33, Dogliani. It is a hands-on estate of eight hectares and a range that now runs from Dolcetto to Nebbiolo, Nascetta, Barbera, Pinot Nero, Freisa and Riesling.

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Place

Dogliani is a town and appellation in the Langhe hills of Cuneo province, southern Piemonte. The Dogliani DOC and Dogliani Superiore DOCG are both built around Dolcetto, a dark-skinned grape that produces wines of vivid colour, firm tannin and bitter-edged fruit in this particular corner of Piemonte. The hills around the town grow Dolcetto at its most characterful: lower yields, darker extraction, more grip than the Dolcetto bottlings produced further north across the Langhe.

The San Luigi hills sit a few kilometres outside Dogliani itself. At this address the vines face a range of aspects and the terrain is hilly enough that individual parcels accumulate very different amounts of sunlight and drainage across a season. The estate's address places it in the heart of this Dolcetto country, though the range now extends well beyond the original appellation.

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Soil And Site

The eight hectares include vines dating to the late 1940s. No chemical fertilisers, herbicides or pesticides are applied. Fertility inputs are verdigris, quarry sulfur, organic manure and green-manure cover crops: clover, fava beans, hemp, barley and oats. The cover crops work the soil between vine rows, building organic matter and limiting erosion on the steeper parcels.

Vine age matters directly in the Dogliani and Dogliani Superiore Pirochetta bottlings: these are the post-war parcels, low-yielding by the nature of old vines, and that concentration shows in the fruit weight of the finished wine.

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Story

The estate's founding years are compressed into a single decade of decisions. Amalia and Sandro searched the Dogliani area for some time before the San Luigi property came available. They bought it in 2001, and in 2002 they applied for organic certification and began the physical work of restoration. The certification came through in 2005.

In 2003, before the organic status was confirmed, they planted Barbera and Nebbiolo on plots in front of the house. This was a deliberate expansion: the estate had been founded on Dolcetto, which the inherited vines already supplied, and the new plantings moved it toward the broader Langhe red-wine world. In the years after 2003, the range widened again with Nascetta and Riesling, then Freisa and Pinot Nero.

Each addition was planted rather than bought in: the estate grew from its own ground, at its own pace, staying small and farmed by the same two people who chose the property in the first place.

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Vineyards And Cellar

All grapes are picked by hand. No commercial yeasts are added to any fermentation: the wines rely on the native yeast populations present on the grapes and in the cellar. After fermentation, the wines are neither filtered nor clarified, which leaves more of the grape's natural sediment and protein in the bottle and gives the wines a textural weight that filtration would remove. Sulphur additions are kept to a minimum.

The Langhe Nebbiolo is selected from multiple vineyards and aged in large oak casks for thirteen to eighteen months, followed by further bottle ageing before release. Large casks impart less new-oak character than barriques and allow slow oxidation; the wine takes on depth without acquiring a dominant wood flavour.

The amphora program uses 850-litre Tuscan terracotta vessels. Terracotta is oxygen-permeable, like large wood, but adds nothing aromatic to the wine. The amphora range covers four wines: Langhe Nascetta Amphorae Cecilia, Langhe Barbera, Langhe Nebbiolo and Dogliani Superiore Pirochetta. The vessels allow the grapes to express themselves without the intervention of fining, filtration or added yeast, extending the same no-input philosophy from the conventional range into a separate amphora program.

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Wines

Dolcetto supplies the historical core. The Dogliani DOC and Dogliani Superiore Pirochetta are made from the post-war parcels, old vines grown without chemicals and picked at natural ripeness. Dogliani Superiore is the higher-grade appellation, requiring longer ageing; Pirochetta is the estate's top Dolcetto bottling. The amphora Dogliani Superiore Pirochetta takes the same fruit into terracotta, producing a wine with earthier texture and a longer, more complex finish than the conventional version.

The Langhe Nebbiolo is built from multiple vineyard selections across the estate and neighbouring plots, aged in large oak casks for thirteen to eighteen months. It is a structured red wine with firm tannin, dried-cherry and iron-edged fruit, and the mid-palate weight that cask ageing adds. The amphora Langhe Nebbiolo is made without cask ageing, which brings the grape's tannin and acidity forward without the softening influence of wood.

Nascetta is a rare indigenous Piemontese white grape with low acidity and a broad, aromatic character: apricot, herbs and a slightly waxy mid-palate. The estate makes a steel-fermented Langhe Nascetta and the Langhe Nascetta Amphorae Cecilia. The amphora version spends time on the skins in terracotta, giving the wine more colour, more phenolic grip and a longer, drier finish than the steel version.

Langhe Barbera, Langhe Pinot Nero, Freisa and Riesling round out the range. The Barbera brings higher acidity and red-fruit brightness; the Pinot Nero is a lighter-bodied red with finer tannin than the Nebbiolo. The amphora Barbera is also made. Freisa is an old Piemontese variety with high tannin and a rustic, sometimes sparkling character; the Riesling points toward aromatic white-wine territory.

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In The Glass

The Dolcetto bottles open with dark fruit, violet, and a bite of bitter almond on the finish that is characteristic of the grape in Dogliani. The tannin is dry and firm rather than grippy, and the old-vine concentration adds depth without heaviness.

The Langhe Nebbiolo carries the iron, dried cherry and rose-petal aromatics that Nebbiolo produces across Piemonte. At Cascina Corte the cask ageing rounds the edges without hiding the grape's natural austerity: the wine has firm acidity, medium body, and a long tannic finish that rewards food.

Nascetta in steel is fragrant and broad: herbal, apricot, slightly honeyed, with lower acidity than most northern Italian whites. In the amphora version, Cecilia, the skin contact adds tannin and a copper-gold colour, and the wine drinks with more grip and less obvious fruit.

Across the amphora range, terracotta gives wines a dry, mineral quality and a slightly rough texture that distinguishes them clearly from the conventional lineup. The wines feel unmediated: no wood flavour, no filtration, no smoothing addition.

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A Bottle To Understand It

Start with the Langhe Nebbiolo. It draws together everything the estate does: multiple-vineyard selection from organically farmed parcels, large-cask ageing over thirteen to eighteen months, no filtration, no added yeast. In the glass it shows dried cherry, iron and rose, with a firm acid line, medium-full body, and a dry tannic finish. The no-filtration approach leaves a slight haze and adds to the wine's mouthfeel. This is Piemontese Nebbiolo made with full conviction and minimal intervention, and it explains both the cellar philosophy and the estate's ambitions more directly than any other single bottle in the range.

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Anecdote

In 2015 Sandro turned sixty. Instead of a conventional celebration, he and Amalia bought two Tuscan terracotta amphorae and filled them with wine as an experiment. The results surprised them. The amphorae, each holding 850 litres, produced wines that were different in texture and depth from anything the cellar had made before: no wood flavour, no fining, the grape fully present. They bought more vessels. What started as a birthday curiosity became a parallel production line covering four wines: Langhe Nascetta Amphorae Cecilia, Langhe Barbera, Langhe Nebbiolo and Dogliani Superiore Pirochetta. The terracotta vessels now sit alongside the oak casks as a permanent part of the cellar.

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Final Word

Cascina Corte is a small Dogliani estate with a clear direction: inherited Dolcetto vines farmed without chemicals, a cellar that adds nothing it does not have to, and a willingness to follow a birthday experiment into a serious amphora program. The range is broader than the appellation suggests and more interesting than the scale implies.

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Sources

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