From the atlas
Poderi Colla
At A Glance
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| Region | Piemonte, Italy |
| Estates | Four properties: Dardi Le Rose (Bussia, Monforte d'Alba), Tenuta Roncaglie (Barbaresco zone), Cascina del Drago (Langhe), Bricco Bompè (Alba) |
| Total area | 28 hectares |
| Grapes | Nebbiolo, Dolcetto, Barbera, Rhine Riesling, Pinot Nero |
| Key bottles | Barolo Bussia Dardi Le Rose, Barbaresco Roncaglie, Langhe Bricco del Drago |
| Cellar | Long maceration, large Slavonian oak casks, no filtration |
| Founded | 1994 |
The Producer
Beppe Colla spent forty years running Prunotto in Alba before founding Poderi Colla in 1994 with his younger brother Tino and daughter Federica. That tenure at Prunotto left a mark on Piedmontese winemaking. Beppe was among the first producers in the zone to vinify individual crus separately and print vineyard names on labels, a practice that spread across Barolo and Barbaresco over the decades that followed. When he left and built his own estate, the founding approach was the same: one vineyard, one wine.
The family now farms 28 hectares across four distinct properties in the Langhe. Tino's son Pietro joined in 2006, extending the family operation into a third generation. Each property carries a different set of grapes and appellations, but the range is unified by the same cellar approach: traditional, hands-off, and built for patience.
Place
The four Poderi Colla estates span three distinct Piemonte appellations. Dardi Le Rose sits in Bussia, the prominent vineyard area within the commune of Monforte d'Alba, one of the five DOCG Barolo communes. Six of the eight hectares there are planted exclusively to Nebbiolo, the grape that must make Barolo by law. The altitude and aspect of Bussia give Nebbiolo long hang time and the gradual tannin development that defines Barolo's character.
Tenuta Roncaglie operates in the Barbaresco zone northeast of Alba, where Nebbiolo on the Treiso and Neive hills produces wines with a different register: earlier-maturing, with more immediate aromatic lift than Barolo, though still built for medium-to-long cellaring. Cascina del Drago sits in the broader Langhe DOC, which allows blended and non-standard wines including the Dolcetto and Nebbiolo combination at the heart of Bricco del Drago. The underground production and ageing cellar at Bricco Bompè, on Madonna di Como hill in Alba, is where all four estates bring their fruit to be vinified and bottled.
Soil And Site
Bussia in Monforte d'Alba is composed of Helvetian calcareous marl. Roncaglie's Barbaresco soils are Tortonian in origin, younger and sandier than Bussia, which tends to produce Barbaresco with softer tannins and more forward fruit in its early years. Cascina del Drago's vineyards were planted between 1969 and 1999, giving the oldest parcels vine age that concentrates flavour in the Dolcetto and Nebbiolo used for Bricco del Drago.
Story
The estate's founding in 1994 was less a retirement project than a continuation. Beppe Colla had built Prunotto into one of the most respected names in Alba's trade, and when he left, he bought into three vineyard properties with his brother and daughter rather than walking away from the work. The cru principle he had applied at Prunotto, naming individual parcels and vinifying them separately, became the operating principle of Poderi Colla from its first vintage.
Pietro Colla's arrival in 2006 brought continuity and an extended time horizon. The family added a fourth property and formalised an environmental protocol that predates Pietro's arrival: since 1995, the estate had been participating in Piemonte's agricultural environmental programme under a more restrictive internal sustainability standard than the programme itself required. That commitment became official when Poderi Colla received Italy's SNQPI integrated-production certification in 2019, a formal recognition of what the family had been doing for more than two decades.
Vineyards And Cellar
Chemicals are kept out of the vineyards. Weed control is mechanical, fertiliser use is occasional and primarily organic, and treatments are applied only when needed. The approach keeps the soil active and the vine root systems working deeper into the subsoil, which concentrates extract and preserves the site character that the cru philosophy depends on.
In the cellar, the approach is long maceration, which draws colour, tannin, and aromatic complexity from the Nebbiolo skins over an extended contact period. The wines then age in large Slavonian oak casks rather than small barriques. Large-format casks allow slow, gentle oxidation without adding oak flavour, so the Slavonian wood transmits air rather than wood character. No filtration means the wine reaches the bottle with its full texture and aromatic range intact. The result in Nebbiolo is a wine with firm, gripping tannin in youth that slowly integrates toward a long, supple finish over years in bottle.
Wines
The Barolo Bussia Dardi Le Rose is pure Nebbiolo from six hectares in Monforte d'Alba. On the nose it carries dried rose, red cherry, and liquorice, the aromatic signature of Nebbiolo grown on calcareous marl at altitude. The palate is rich and full, with the long maceration producing tannins that emerge as dense but not coarse, supported by the acidity. This is a wine that needs eight to ten years to open fully.
The Barbaresco Roncaglie is also pure Nebbiolo, from the estate's Treiso-zone vineyard on a cru documented in the written record since 1800. The wine is aged in large Slavonian casks without filtration. It shares Barolo's aromatic register, rose and red fruit with an iron note, but the Tortonian soils of Roncaglie give it a slightly more open, earlier-accessible character than the Bussia Barolo, though it still rewards four to six years of cellaring.
Langhe Bricco del Drago is the range's least orthodox bottle: a blend of Dolcetto and Nebbiolo from Cascina del Drago, produced since the 1969 vintage. Dolcetto contributes dark fruit, colour, and an early softness; Nebbiolo adds grip, freshness, and length. It is a Langhe DOC wine, meaning it falls outside both the Barolo and Barbaresco DOCG rules, but the family made it before the later wave of Piedmontese blended experiments and continues to make it in the same spirit. Cascina del Drago also carries a Pinot Nero parcel called Campo Romano, a rarity in Piedmont.
Tenuta Roncaglie additionally grows Barbera and Rhine Riesling, an unusual planting for the zone that underlines how widely the estate ranges beyond the core Nebbiolo focus.
In The Glass
Nebbiolo across both Barolo and Barbaresco opens with dried rose and violet, red cherry turning toward leather and tobacco with age, and a persistent liquorice thread that runs through both wines. The nose is precise and lifted, not heavy. On the palate, the long maceration leaves a clear mark: the tannins are firm and mouth-coating in young vintages, with enough grip to feel almost austere before the fruit catches up. The Barolo from Bussia has a denser mid-palate weight and a longer, more mineral finish than the Barbaresco, which moves toward softer, more open fruit character in its first few years. Both wines finish with the clean acidity that keeps Nebbiolo food-friendly and age-ready across decades.
Bricco del Drago is a different experience: the Dolcetto brings dark plum and bitter almond up front, the Nebbiolo adds brightness and grip, and the wine finishes with a freshness suited to drinking within two to four years of vintage.
A Bottle To Understand It
Barolo Bussia Dardi Le Rose. Six hectares of Nebbiolo in Monforte d'Alba, long maceration, large Slavonian casks, no filtration, no shortcut. In the glass it shows dried rose and red cherry on the nose, a rich and firmly tannic palate with the concentrated mid-palate weight that Bussia marl delivers, and a long finish where liquorice and mineral detail settle in. It needs time: a decade from a good vintage before it fully gives way. Start here to understand what Beppe Colla built the estate around, and what the cru principle looks like when the vineyard is allowed to speak without the cellar getting in the way.
Anecdote
In 1961, Beppe Colla made a Barolo from the Dardi Le Rose vineyards in Bussia, Monforte d'Alba, and printed the vineyard name on the label. That was not the habit in Barolo at the time. Most producers blended their Nebbiolo across the commune and sold the wine simply as Barolo, without a cru address. Beppe was already working at Prunotto in Alba and applied the same reasoning there, establishing a practice of naming individual parcels on Piedmontese labels that spread gradually across the zone over the following decades. When he left Prunotto in 1994 and founded Poderi Colla with his brother and daughter, the first vineyard he built the range around was Dardi Le Rose in Bussia. The Barolo from that vineyard is still the estate's central bottle.
Final Word
Poderi Colla does not ask for quick results. The cellar work is slow and the wines need time. What the family built in 1994 was a continuation of a cru discipline that Beppe Colla had been developing since the early 1960s, and the four estates are the physical expression of that logic: distinct vineyards, distinct wines, one underground cellar to bring them all together. The Barolo from Bussia, the Barbaresco from Roncaglie, and the Bricco del Drago from Cascina del Drago cover the range of what Piemonte's Langhe can do. The family covers them all without rushing any of them.
Sources
- https://www.podericolla.it/en/
- https://www.altalangadocg.com/en/cellars/poderi-colla/
- https://vineyardroad.net/producers/poderi-colla/
- https://boutinot.com/producers/poderi-colla/
- https://www.podericolla.it/en/wine/barolo-docg-bussia-dardi-le-rose/
- https://www.podericolla.it/en/wine/barbaresco-docg-roncaglie/
- https://www.podericolla.it/en/wine/langhe-doc-bricco-del-drago/
- https://boutinot.com/wines/barolo-bussia-dardi-le-rose/
- https://boutinot.com/wines/barbaresco-roncaglie/