From the atlas
Roagna Azienda Agricola I Paglieri S.S
At A Glance
Producer: Roagna Azienda Agricola I Paglieri Country: Italy Region: Piemonte Zone: Barbaresco, Barolo, Colli Tortonesi (Langhe) Primary Grape: Nebbiolo Farming: Certified organic Key Sites: Pajè (Barbaresco), Asili (Barbaresco), Pira (Castiglione Falletto) Range Tiers: Cru (vines 25-50 years), Vecchie Viti (vines over 50 years) Cellar Approach: Long submerged-cap maceration (60-90 days average), extended oak ageing, no fining or filtration
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The Producer
Roagna farms fifteen planted hectares across three of Piemonte's most distinct Nebbiolo zones: Barbaresco, Barolo and the Colli Tortonesi. The core is the Pajè vineyard in the Barbaresco appellation, acquired by Giovanni and Maria Candida Roagna in 1953 and farmed by the family ever since. Alfredo Roagna and his son Luca now run the estate. Luca joined in 2001 as the fifth generation and gradually pulled the cellar toward longer skin contact, deeper extraction and more demanding ageing windows.
The estate is certified organic, and the soils across its holdings combine limestone, marl and sand. Biodiversity and massal selection, using cuttings taken from the estate's own oldest vines, are explicit commitments. The wines go to bottle unfined and unfiltered.
Roagna occupies a particular position in the Langhe. It is not a house built around a single grand parcel, but an estate assembled across decades of acquisition in named sites: Pajè in 1953, a 0.22-hectare parcel in the Asili cru in 1961, Cascina Pira in Castiglione Falletto in 1990. Each plot gave a separate wine. The range includes wines from these named sites.
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Place
Barbaresco and Barolo are the two major Nebbiolo appellations of the Langhe, the hilly country south of Alba in southern Piemonte. Both require one hundred percent Nebbiolo and long ageing in oak. Barbaresco sits northeast of Alba, around the commune of Barbaresco and several surrounding villages; Barolo lies to the southwest, centred on the town of La Morra and a constellation of communes that includes Castiglione Falletto. The appellations share the same grape and the same general commitment to tannic, age-worthy red wine, but their soils differ: Barbaresco's Tortonian marl and limestone tend to produce wines that open earlier and carry floral perfume alongside the iron grip of Nebbiolo's tannin; Barolo's mix of Tortonian and Helvetian soils, with more compact clay in parts, typically produces wines that need more time.
Roagna's Pajè vineyard sits in the Barbaresco zone. Its 0.22-hectare Asili parcel is one of Barbaresco's most prized named sites, on the hillside above the Tanaro river. The Pira vineyard in Castiglione Falletto is inside the Barolo appellation, with vines on the slope facing the Rocche ridge. The Colli Tortonesi, Roagna's third zone, is a separate DOC southeast of the Langhe, across the Apennine foothills.
On Roagna's labels, the appellation name and the vineyard name appear together: Barbaresco Pajè, Barbaresco Asili, Barolo Pira. Where the wine is also a Vecchie Viti bottling, VV follows the site name.
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Soil And Site
The limestone, marl and sand that make up the soils across Roagna's Barbaresco and Barolo holdings are typical of Langhe geology, laid down during the Tortonian and Helvetian epochs when this inland sea retreated. Marl and limestone give good drainage and moderate fertility, which keeps vine yields low and concentrates flavour in the berry. Sand lightens the texture and tends to lift the perfume of Nebbiolo, adding a floral top note to the more austere tannic frame of the grape.
The Pajè vineyard is on mid-slope terrain in the Barbaresco commune, with southeastern exposure. Asili sits slightly higher, also on marl-dominated soil, with good southern light. The Pira vineyard in Castiglione Falletto holds vines planted as far back as 1937, now among the oldest Nebbiolo in the Barolo zone. Old vines on limestone-rich marl produce smaller bunches and thicker skins, which translates into more concentrated pigment and tannin in the must.
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Story
The Roagna estate begins with Giovanni and Maria Candida's purchase of the Pajè farm in Barbaresco in 1953. The vineyard was already a recognised name in the commune. Giovanni farmed it through the decades that followed, eventually making parcel-level decisions: in 1961 he bought 0.22 hectares in the Asili cru, one of the plots most sought after in the appellation. In 1978, drawing on selections from the Pajè harvest, the family released Barbaresco Crichët Pajè as the estate's leading wine. The name has remained on the label since.
Alfredo Roagna continued the work after Giovanni, and in 1990 the family added Cascina Pira in Castiglione Falletto, a Barolo property with old-vine parcels on the Rocche slope. A new winery was built there and the first Barolo vinification in the new facility took place in 2010.
The decisive change came with Luca. When he joined the estate in 2001, he began extending maceration times beyond what the estate had previously used. The fermentations moved from around thirty days to an average of sixty to ninety days, with corresponding changes to wood ageing. That shift touched every wine in the range and determined the ageing profile of every vintage since. In 2014, a friendship with a neighbouring grower enabled Luca to lease the Albesani and Gallina vineyards in Neive, adding two more named sites to the Barbaresco holdings.
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Vineyards And Cellar
Roagna farms twenty hectares in total, fifteen planted to vines. The remainder is woodland. Certified organic farming covers all holdings. Vine material is managed through massal selection: cuttings taken from the oldest estate vines are used to replant, preserving the genetic diversity of each parcel rather than replacing old material with certified clones. Biodiversity, in the cover crops between rows and the woodland borders, is treated as part of the farming system.
The range divides by vine age. Cru wines come from vines between twenty-five and fifty years old. Vecchie Viti wines, carrying the VV suffix, come from vines over fifty years old: the Pira vineyard holds material from 1937, the oldest Nebbiolo on any Roagna site.
In the cellar, fermentation takes place in cask with indigenous yeasts cultivated from the estate's own grapes via a pied de cuve. Submerged-cap maceration runs for an average of sixty to ninety days, longer than almost any other producer in the Langhe. Longer maceration draws out more colour compounds, more tannin and more phenolic depth from the thick skins of old-vine Nebbiolo. The wines then age in oak barrels for an extended period before bottling, and leave the cellar without fining or filtration: what is in the barrel goes directly into the bottle.
The practical consequence is wines that arrive with pronounced tannin, deep colour and a compressed fruit profile that needs time to open. Young Roagna bottles reward patience of a decade or more.
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Wines
Roagna's Barbaresco wines are the Pajè and Asili crus, each available in the standard cru version and the Vecchie Viti tier. Crichët Pajè, the estate's flagship Barbaresco, comes from the Pajè vineyard and is the wine the family has bottled under that name since 1978. The Asili VV, drawn from the tiny 0.22-hectare parcel Giovanni acquired in 1961, is among the most concentrated of the estate's bottlings: old vines, small yields, ninety-day maceration, and no addition of any kind before or after bottling.
The Barolo range centres on Pira, the Castiglione Falletto vineyard whose oldest parcels carry vines from 1937. The Barolo Pira and Barolo Pira VV follow the same age-tier logic as the Barbaresco wines. The VV material, from vines nearly ninety years old, shows darker colour and a denser mid-palate than the standard cru bottling, though both need several years of cellaring before the tannin loosens enough for the fruit to be readable.
The Colli Tortonesi wines, from the southeastern zone beyond the Apennine foothills, complete the range. They come from different soil and a different sub-climate, and carry their own DOC designation rather than Barbaresco or Barolo.
Across the range, the shared markers of Roagna are consistent: concentrated red and black fruit, firm tannin from long skin contact, earthy depth from old vines and no-filtration bottling, and acidity sufficient to carry the wines across a long ageing arc.
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In The Glass
Nebbiolo from the Langhe rises from the glass with dried rose, tar and iron oxide before softer fruit appears: cherry, dried plum, sometimes a dried herb note in the younger vintages that resolves to cedar and tobacco as the wine ages. In Roagna's wines, the maceration length pushes the perfume deeper and adds a layer of dark-fruit concentration behind the floral top note.
In the mouth, the tannin is the first structural fact. Sixty to ninety days of skin contact produces grip that in young bottles can read as austere. The acidity in Nebbiolo is naturally high, and here it sits inside rather than above the tannin, giving the wine a dry, almost chalky finish. The mid-palate is dense, the fruit compressed rather than open.
The Barbaresco wines, from marl-heavy Tortonian soils, carry more perfume and slightly finer tannin than the Barolo. The Pajè site adds a mineral note; the Asili parcel, with its southern exposure and older vines, gives more volume in the mid-palate. The Barolo Pira, from the Castiglione Falletto slope, is more linear, with tobacco, cedar and dried chamomile, and a taut, driven profile that takes longer to unwind. The no-filtration bottling preserves colour depth and keeps the fine sediment that forms in bottle over time.
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A Bottle To Understand It
Barolo Pira is the right first bottle. It comes from the Castiglione Falletto vineyard the family has held since 1990, planted in significant part with Nebbiolo from 1937, and it carries the clearest statement of what Roagna's cellar method produces. The 2018 vintage shows tobacco, cedar, mint, dried flowers and chamomile on the nose, with a bright, linear and taut mid-palate. Vinous calls it ethereal and driven. The fruit is not open yet, but the acidity and concentration are already evident. Decant several hours ahead if opening young, or hold it for eight to ten years and let the tannin dissolve on its own. The wine comes from old-vine Nebbiolo, undergoes long maceration, and is bottled without filtration.
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Anecdote
When Luca Roagna returned from oenology school in 2001 and joined his father Alfredo at the estate, one of the first things he changed was how long the grapes stayed on their skins. Alfredo had run the macerations for around thirty days, which was already on the longer side for the Langhe. Luca pushed further: first to sixty days, then to an average of sixty to ninety. The change was not a single vintage decision. It moved through the range gradually, vintage by vintage, each year's wines carrying more tannin and more demand for extended cellaring than the one before. The Pira vineyard, with its 1937 vines and thick-skinned fruit, responded most dramatically. Those wines now need a decade before the tannin grid relaxes. The macerations Luca settled on in the early 2000s have not been shortened since.
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Final Word
Roagna is a family estate assembled parcel by parcel across seven decades, farmed organically across three Piemontese zones, and shaped in the cellar by one fifth-generation decision that moved maceration time well beyond regional norms. The wines are not built for immediate drinking. They are built around old Nebbiolo vines, long skin contact and time in bottle, and they reward buyers who understand that Barbaresco and Barolo at this level are investments in patience as much as in a label. Start with the Barolo Pira, hold it for a decade, and it will make the case for the rest of the range.
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Sources
- https://www.roagna.com/en/historical-wine-cellar/
- https://www.roagna.com/en/our-vineyards/
- https://www.roagna.com/en/the-roagna-manifesto/
- https://louisdressner.com/producers/roagna
- https://www.polanerselections.com/producers/roagna/
- https://crushwineco.com/blogs/offers/this-is-an-especially-ethereal-barolo-br-2018-roagna-barolo-la-pira
- https://primavini.com/2018-roagna-barolo-pira/
- https://noblewine.lv/en/product/roagna-barbaresco-crichet-paje-2016-2/