Italy · Langhe

Ceretto

Ceretto farms 160 hectares across Barolo and Barbaresco from its base outside Alba, with single-vineyard Nebbiolo wines first released in 1974 and all vineyards certified organic since 2015.

The producer

Ceretto started without a single vine. In the 1930s, Riccardo Ceretto ran a merchant operation, buying grapes, making wine, and selling it without the asset that would later define everything the family built. When his sons Bruno and Marcello entered the business, they drove the Langhe roads, climbed the hills, and began buying the specific hilltop parcels they believed were producing the best Nebbiolo. By 1974 they had enough to make an argument that most Piedmontese producers were not yet making: that the vineyard mattered more than the appellation average. They put the names Brunate, Prapò, and Bricco Rocche on their Barolo labels and Bricco Asili on their Barbaresco, among the earliest single-vineyard releases in the region.

Today the estate farms 160 hectares across Barolo and Barbaresco from its headquarters at Tenuta Monsordo Bernardina on the outskirts of Alba. The third generation has extended the family's vineyard conviction into the cellar. Alessandro Ceretto, who returned from oenology training and time abroad, stopped adding selected yeasts to the crus in 2008, building a pied de cuve from each vineyard's own grapes. Fermentation and maceration run around 20 days, and new oak has been reduced to a fraction of earlier levels, so that Nebbiolo reads as fruit and place rather than barrel. All 160 hectares completed organic certification in 2015.

Known for

Single-vineyard Barolo (Brunate, Prapò, Bricco Rocche) and Barbaresco (Bricco Asili); Moscato d'Asti through I Vignaioli di Santo Stefano.

Notable facts

The story

The Vineyard on the Label

In 1974, almost every bottle of Barolo leaving the Langhe carried the appellation name and the producer's name. The hill it came from stayed in the cellar ledger, not on the label. Bruno and Marcello Ceretto had spent the previous decade buying specific parcels precisely because they believed the hill mattered, and in 1974 they printed the proof: single-vineyard Barolos and Barbarescos, among the first released commercially in the region, with Brunate, Prapò, and Bricco Asili written where the village name alone had usually been. Other producers in the Langhe noticed. The vineyard-name format that now organises the entire Piedmontese fine-wine market, which retailers explain to buyers and wine lists use to justify price points, traces part of its commercial logic to the labels the two brothers chose to print that year.

From the atlas

Ceretto

At A Glance

The Producer

Ceretto started without a single vine. In the 1930s, Riccardo Ceretto ran a merchant operation, buying grapes, making wine, and selling it without the asset that would later define everything the family built. When his sons Bruno and Marcello entered the business, they looked at the Langhe differently. They saw hillside parcels with names, each producing something distinct, and they began the work of owning them.

The two brothers spent the 1960s mapping the land they wanted and purchasing it parcel by parcel. By 1974 they had enough to make an argument that most Piedmontese producers were not yet making: that the vineyard mattered more than the appellation average. They put the names Brunate, Prapò, and Bricco Rocche on their Barolo labels and the Bricco Asili name on their Barbaresco. It was one of the earliest commercial releases of single-vineyard Barolo and Barbaresco from any producer in the region.

Today Ceretto farms 160 hectares across Barolo and Barbaresco from its headquarters at Tenuta Monsordo Bernardina on the outskirts of Alba. The third generation has extended the family's vineyard conviction into the cellar.

Place

Barolo and Barbaresco are both Piemonte appellations built around Nebbiolo, but they sit on different geology and belong to different communes. Barolo lies south and west of Alba, its vineyards spread across townships that include La Morra and Serralunga d'Alba. La Morra sits on younger Tortonian soils, pale and calcareous, that tend to produce Nebbiolo with generous fruit and relatively accessible tannin in youth. Serralunga d'Alba sits on older, harder Helvetian soils that give firmer, more compact wine requiring more time to open.

Barbaresco lies northeast of Alba along the Tanaro river, with its named vineyards concentrated around the village of Barbaresco. The appellation typically ripens a little earlier than Barolo and its wines often show slightly softer tannin at comparable ages, though the finest sites can age for decades.

Ceretto's Barolo parcels fall primarily in La Morra, the home of the Brunate vineyard, with additional holdings in Serralunga d'Alba at Prapò. Its Barbaresco is centred on Bricco Asili, the vineyard outside the village of Barbaresco where the family built a dedicated winery. The label reads the geography: each single-vineyard wine carries the commune and the specific hill.

Soil And Site

Brunate sits in La Morra on pale Tortonian limestone and clay. Its lower slopes, which supply the majority of fruit for the estate Barolo, give rounder, plumper Nebbiolo than the higher ground. The Prapò vineyard in Serralunga sits on compact Helvetian soils with higher sand content and delivers tighter, more angular fruit. Bricco Asili in Barbaresco is named for its position on a steep hilltop above the village. The soils there share the calcareous character of the Langhe broadly but the elevation and aspect shape a wine that is distinctly separate from either Barolo site.

Story

Riccardo Ceretto built a functional merchant wine business. His sons inherited it and decided it was pointed at the wrong thing. During the 1960s, Bruno and Marcello drove the Langhe roads, climbed the hills, and identified which parcels they believed were producing the best Nebbiolo. They began buying them. Bricco Asili came first, acquired between 1969 and 1973, where the family built the winery that today makes all their Barbaresco. By 1974 the brothers had released their first single-vineyard Barolos and Barbarescos, at a time when the dominant commercial model in Piedmont was to blend sites and sometimes vintages and sell under a producer or merchant name.

In 1976, the family added a different project: I Vignaioli di Santo Stefano, a separate estate in Santo Stefano Belbo, the village where Riccardo had been born, to vinify Moscato d'Asti. The two operations, Nebbiolo at the hilltop and Moscato in the valley, have remained separate since.

The third chapter belongs to Alessandro Ceretto, who returned from oenology school and time working in wineries abroad. In 2010 the family began converting all 160 hectares to organic agriculture. Five years later, every Ceretto-owned vineyard had received certification. Alessandro had already changed the cellar by then: from 2008 he began fermenting the crus without selected yeasts, building a pied de cuve from each vineyard's own grapes and using it to start fermentation. Decanter identifies 2009 as the first single-vineyard vintage in which ambient-yeast fermentation was completed across the crus.

Vineyards And Cellar

Organic farming across the full 160 hectares means no synthetic herbicides or pesticides in the vineyards. The transition took five years and covered all Ceretto parcels in Barolo, Barbaresco, and the broader Langhe.

In the cellar, Alessandro's pied de cuve method uses a small culture propagated from each vineyard's own grapes to start fermentation naturally. Fermentation and skin maceration run approximately 20 days. The skin contact extracts tannin and colour from Nebbiolo's thick skins while the ambient yeasts work more slowly than selected strains, giving a longer fermentation curve that the family believes preserves more of the fruit and site character in the finished wine.

New oak has been progressively reduced over two decades. Ceretto describes the reason plainly: new barrels mask wine aromas with wood-derived aromas and tannin. By the 2009 vintage, new oak across the single-vineyard wines had dropped to roughly 5 to 8 percent of total wood. The effect is Nebbiolo that reads as fruit and place first, with no barrel overlay obscuring the mineral and balsamic notes that come from the grape and the hill.

Wines

Ceretto's range is built around Nebbiolo in two appellations, with a clear vertical hierarchy in both.

The estate Barolo assembles fruit from multiple parcels, principally the lower Brunate slopes along with smaller contributions from other holdings. It is the widest-reaching expression in the range, rounder and more accessible in younger vintages than the single-vineyard bottles above it.

Above the estate Barolo sit three single-vineyard wines. Brunate, from the La Morra parcel, carries the softer fruit character of that commune: crushed raspberry, dried rose petal, and balsamic lift over a pliant but present tannin. Wine Enthusiast found the 2019 juicy and round with mouth-watering acidity and those balsamic notes. Prapò, from Serralunga d'Alba, is typically firmer and more angular in youth, with darker fruit, more compact tannin, and a longer development arc. Bricco Rocche is Ceretto's third single-vineyard Barolo, from a hilltop parcel producing wine with more elevation character.

In Barbaresco, the single wine is Bricco Asili, from the vineyard the family has farmed since the early 1970s. It occupies a separate compositional space from the Barolos: similar Nebbiolo grape, different commune, different soil, different winery, and a slightly earlier ripening pattern.

Beyond the Nebbiolo wines, Ceretto produces Blangé, a white from the Arneis grape within the Langhe appellation, and a Langhe Nebbiolo for earlier drinking. I Vignaioli di Santo Stefano handles the family's Moscato d'Asti entirely separately, from the estate in Santo Stefano Belbo.

In The Glass

Ceretto's Nebbiolo wines across all levels carry the grape's signature: high natural acidity, firm tannin from thick skins, and aromatic reach into dried rose, tar, and red fruit. The estate Barolo opens with bright cherry and dried herb, the tannin present but rounded by the blend's La Morra base, and the finish carrying the characteristic balsamic lift of the Langhe.

Brunate adds depth and definition to that profile. The nose lifts with crushed raspberry and strawberry, the acidity is mouthwatering and pulls the fruit across a long palate, and the finish has a mineral edge followed by balsamic. Even in a ripe year like 2019 the wine finishes dry and clean, with no sweetness.

Prapò puts more weight on tannin and less on immediate fruit. The early years reveal a compact, grippy frame, dark cherry and earth rather than bright berry, and a finish that needs time to resolve. Given five or more years, the hard edges soften into a more complex, savoury Barolo.

Bricco Asili in Barbaresco tends toward a more approachable tannin architecture at younger ages, the acidity still vivid, the fruit running toward cherry and rose rather than the darker register of Serralunga.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with the Ceretto Barolo, the estate-level bottle assembled principally from the lower Brunate parcel. It is not a single-vineyard wine, but it draws its character from La Morra, the softer, more approachable side of the appellation. On the nose, dried cherry and rose with a thread of tar and balsamic. In the mouth, the acidity is firm and clean, the tannin round enough to drink without extended cellaring, and the finish long and dry. It tells you what Nebbiolo does in the Langhe without the tighter, more demanding tannin of the Serralunga bottles. Once you understand what the estate is doing with the grape and the soil, Brunate is the natural next step.

Anecdote

In 1974, almost every bottle of Barolo leaving the Langhe carried the appellation name and the producer's name. The hill it came from stayed in the cellar ledger, not on the label. Bruno and Marcello Ceretto had spent the previous decade buying specific parcels precisely because they believed the hill mattered, and in 1974 they printed the proof: single-vineyard Barolos and Barbarescos, among the first released commercially in the region, with Brunate, Prapò, and Bricco Asili written where the village name alone had usually been. Other producers in the Langhe noticed. The vineyard-name format that now organises the entire Piedmontese fine-wine market, which retailers explain to buyers and wine lists use to justify price points, traces part of its commercial logic to the labels the two brothers chose to print that year.

Final Word

Ceretto is a large estate by Langhe standards, 160 hectares across two appellations, that has kept the argument it started in 1974 at the centre of everything it does: the hill produces the wine, and the label should say so. The organic conversion completed in 2015 and Alessandro's cellar changes since 2008 are extensions of the same logic, removing interventions that sit between the vineyard and the glass. The single-vineyard Barolos are where the full argument lands, but the estate Barolo is the clearest place to start.

Sources

Open Ceretto in the interactive map →