Italy · Langhe

Colombo Antonio e Figli

A cardiologist from Varese came to the Alta Langa hills in the early 2000s, found eighty-year-old Pinot Nero vines already in the ground, and built a family estate around them.

The producer

Colombo Antonio e Figli farms ten contiguous hectares in Bubbio, in the Asti province of southern Piemonte, within the Alta Langa zone where the Langhe hills rise to their southern edge. The founding figure is Antonio Colombo, a cardiologist who chose these high hillsides for a deliberate reason: marl and limestone soils, regular ventilation, and sharp day-to-night temperature drops give Pinot Nero more acidity and aromatic lift than the broader Langhe floor. Oenologist Riccardo Cotarella joined the project in 2010 and has shaped a cellar built on directness: stainless steel for the still Pinot Nero to keep fruit and acidity forward, large oak casks and tonneaux for gentle integration, and traditional-method fermentation in bottle for the Alta Langa DOCG sparkling wines.

The range divides into still Piemonte DOC Pinot Nero and Alta Langa DOCG sparkling wines. The still Pinot Nero, which the estate also bottles as the Apertura Maxima cuvee, spends roughly a year in stainless steel before bottle ageing, producing a light-to-medium red with redcurrant, sour cherry, violet and herbal notes and a firm acid line carrying the finish. The Alta Langa Blanc de Blancs is an Extra Brut from Chardonnay grown at around 600 metres, with green apple, citrus zest and a dry mineral finish. The Rosé Riserva, at its most committed, spent 120 months on lees in magnums before disgorgement in 2022. The Apertura Maxima drew 93 points from Wine Enthusiast for its 2011 vintage.

Known for

Alta Langa Pinot Nero and traditional-method sparkling wines from high-altitude marl and limestone vineyards in Bubbio, Piemonte.

Notable facts

The story

The Vines Were Already There

When the Colombo family walked the Bubbio property for the first time in the early 2000s, they were not expecting what they found. Pinot Nero plants more than eighty years old were already growing across the parcel they had chosen for a project built around the conviction that Pinot Nero belonged in Alta Langa. The estate notes that vines of that age are evidence of a Pinot Nero presence in Piedmont dating back to the nineteenth century. The family had arrived with a hypothesis about what these high southern Langhe hillsides could produce; the hillside had been running the same experiment for nearly a century before them. Those old vines are still farmed today, and their fruit goes into the Piemonte DOC Pinot Nero that is the estate's most direct statement of what the site produces.

From the atlas

Colombo Antonio e Figli

At A Glance

The Producer

Antonio Colombo spent his career as a cardiologist in Varese. In the early 2000s he chose a hill in Bubbio, in the Asti province of southern Piemonte, and built a wine estate with his children on ten contiguous hectares in Alta Langa. The project turned on a hypothesis: that these high southern Langhe hillsides, where marl and limestone meet sharp thermal swings, could produce Pinot Nero with the acidity and aromatic clarity the variety demands. When the family walked the Bubbio property for the first time, the hypothesis already had evidence. Pinot Nero vines more than eighty years old were growing in the ground, planted, the estate believes, in the nineteenth century.

The estate trades under the name Cascina Pastori. Riccardo Cotarella joined the project in 2010. Vinification focuses on purity and respect for the grape, with ageing mainly in large oak casks and tonneaux.

Place

Alta Langa is a collective name for the high-altitude southern extension of the Langhe hills, running through parts of Asti and Cuneo. Bubbio sits within it at elevations well above the valley floor. The Alta Langa DOCG, which formally covers traditional-method sparkling wines made from Pinot Nero and Chardonnay, is one of the youngest DOCG zones in Piemonte, and its vineyards typically sit above 250 metres, often higher.

What altitude changes for Pinot Nero is the harvest window. Cooler nights slow ripening and pull temperatures down after warm days, so the grape holds more acidity and more of its aromatic compounds than it would lower down the Langhe slope. The result, in a cellar that does not cover those characters with heavy oak or extended maceration, is a lighter-bodied red with more lift and a more defined aromatic register than most Piemonte Pinot Nero.

Soil And Site

The ten hectares at Bubbio sit on marl and limestone, soils that drain freely and hold moderate fertility. Marl, a mix of clay and calcium carbonate, is widespread in the Langhe hills and tends to produce wines with a firm, mineral quality in the mouth. Combined with the regular ventilation the Alta Langa zone receives and the pronounced day-to-night temperature variation, the site pushes Pinot Nero toward a cooler, more aromatic style: redcurrant and dog rose rather than darker fruit, and more freshness on the finish.

The age of the vines adds another dimension. Roots from eighty-year-old Pinot Nero plants reach deep into the subsoil, drawing from a broader mineral reserve and producing smaller, more concentrated clusters than young vines.

Story

The Colombo family came to Alta Langa with a clear purpose. Antonio Colombo, trained in medicine and internationally active in his field, chose the zone because he believed it could yield a distinctly Italian expression of Pinot Nero, a grape the region had grown for generations but that had rarely been developed with serious intent by a purpose-built estate.

The family founded Cascina Pastori in the early 2000s and began working through what the ten-hectare holding required. The old Pinot Nero vines were kept and farmed carefully. Chardonnay was planted and managed for the sparkling range. In 2010, Riccardo Cotarella joined as oenologist, formalising a stylistic direction the family had already pointed toward: vinification that respects varietal character, oak that accompanies rather than dominates, and a sparkling program built to the highest ageing standard the Alta Langa DOCG allows. The 2011 Rosé Riserva, sealed in magnums and left on its lees for a full decade, was disgorged only in 2022, a decision that placed a small estate's wine among the most patiently aged traditional-method bottles made in the zone.

Vineyards And Cellar

The estate monitors Pinot Nero closely through the growing season and harvests when the grape reaches what it describes as the balance point between roundness and acidity. That moment determines the character of every wine: pick too early and the tannins are sharp; pick too late and the acidity that defines the Alta Langa style is lost.

In the cellar, vinification is kept close to the grape. Cotarella and the family do not aim to build weight or add woody extraction. Ageing for the still Pinot Nero occurs mainly in large oak casks and tonneaux, vessels that allow slow oxygen contact and gentle integration without pressing oak flavour into the wine. The Piemonte DOC Pinot Nero spends approximately one year in stainless steel, which preserves fruit and acidity, then passes through several months of bottle ageing before release.

The Alta Langa sparkling wines follow the traditional method: fermentation in bottle, time on lees for complexity and mousse development, then disgorgement. The Blanc de Blancs spends around 80 days on its lees. The Rosé Riserva, at its most ambitious, spent 120 months.

Wines

The range divides cleanly into still and sparkling.

The Piemonte DOC Pinot Nero, labelled in its top cuvee as Apertura Maxima, is 100% Pinot Nero from the Bubbio vineyards. A year in stainless steel keeps the wine fresh and transparent; the tannins are gentle and the acidity is the defining structural feature. On the nose it shows redcurrant, sour cherry, dog rose and violet alongside herbal and balsamic notes. In the mouth, cinnamon and white pepper appear alongside the fruit, and the finish is persistent enough that the wine can develop further in bottle. The Apertura Maxima drew 93 points from Wine Enthusiast in 2015 for its 2011 vintage, which showed mature berry, leather, savoury herbs and cooking spice with firm tannins.

The Alta Langa DOCG Blanc de Blancs is an Extra Brut from 100% Chardonnay grown at approximately 600 metres, the uppermost end of the estate's altitude range. Around 80 days on lees gives it fine mousse and a mineral character alongside green apple, citrus zest and white flowers. The Extra Brut dosage keeps the finish dry and the acidity high.

The Alta Langa DOCG Rosé Riserva, made with Pinot Nero as its base, is the estate's most age-committed wine. The 2011 vintage, disgorged in 2022 after ten years on lees in magnums, sits at the extended end of any traditional-method ageing program in the zone.

In The Glass

The Piemonte DOC Pinot Nero opens with precise red-fruit aromatics: redcurrant and sour cherry at the centre, dog rose and violet giving floral lift, and herbal and lightly balsamic notes underneath. In the mouth, the wine is light to medium in body, with a firm acid line carrying freshness from entry to finish. Cinnamon and white pepper appear with the fruit in the mid-palate; the tannins are gentle enough not to interrupt the movement. The finish holds, and bottles with some age on them develop the leather and savoury herb character the Apertura Maxima showed at ten years old.

The Blanc de Blancs is leaner and more citrus-driven: green apple and lemon zest on the nose, a fine persistent mousse, and a dry, mineral finish from the Extra Brut dosage and the high-altitude Chardonnay. The Rosé Riserva, when aged at the Colombo scale, develops a more complex aromatic register with the direct fruit receding and deeper, toastier characters emerging, while the mousse stays fine and the acidity holds the whole balance in place.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with the Piemonte DOC Pinot Nero, or the Apertura Maxima cuvee if you can find it. It is the clearest statement of what this estate does: Pinot Nero from eighty-year-old vines on marl and limestone, fermented in stainless steel to keep the fruit and acidity forward, then aged gently before release. The tannins are light, the body is medium, and the aromatics sit in the precise redcurrant-and-violet register that Alta Langa altitude produces. It is not a heavy wine and does not pretend to be. It is cool-climate Italian Pinot Nero made by people who chose the variety on purpose, built a cellar around its character, and had the vine age to support the claim.

Anecdote

When the Colombo family walked the Bubbio property for the first time in the early 2000s, they were not expecting the vines they found. Pinot Nero plants already in the ground, more than eighty years old, grew across the parcel they had chosen for a project built around the conviction that Pinot Nero belonged in Alta Langa. The estate's website notes that vines of that age are evidence of a Pinot Nero presence in Piedmont dating back to the nineteenth century. The family had come with a hypothesis; the hillside had been running the same experiment for nearly a century before them. Those old vines are still farmed today and their fruit goes into the Piemonte DOC Pinot Nero that is the estate's most direct statement of what the site produces.

Final Word

Colombo Antonio e Figli is a deliberate project: a specific grape, a specific zone, a specific cellar philosophy. The old vines at Bubbio give the Pinot Nero an authority that younger plantings cannot replicate, and Cotarella's influence since 2010 has kept the cellar from covering that authority with unnecessary weight. The Alta Langa sparkling wines round out a focused range. The Apertura Maxima, at 93 points from Wine Enthusiast in its first serious review, suggested early that the hypothesis was correct.

Sources

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