Who makes it
Below Canelli, a town in the Asti hills of Piedmont, the ground opens into five thousand square metres of tunnel. The cellars descend to thirty-eight metres, cut through calcareous tuff that holds a constant thirteen degrees Celsius through every season. Contratto has been ageing sparkling wine in those tunnels since 1867, and the tunnels are the argument the house makes: if the wine stays down long enough, on its lees, in a cellar that never changes temperature, it becomes something different from most Italian fizz.
Giuseppe Contratto founded the house in 1867, initially vinifying Moscato from Monferrato. Within decades the range had pivoted to traditional-method sparkling wine, and by around 1910 Contratto was exporting and supplying the Vatican, the Belgian royal house, and the Savoy royal family. In 1919 the house produced what is recorded as the first vintage-dated Italian sparkling wine. The vermouth and liqueur range followed in 1920.
Where it grows
Alta Langa DOCG is the mountain sparkling wine appellation of Piedmont, covering traditional-method wines grown in the Langa hills south of Alba. The designation requires Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, or both, and the wines must spend at least eighteen months on lees. Contratto's two vineyards sit in Bossolasco, at seven hundred to eight hundred and twenty metres above sea level, which is high even within Alta Langa.
At that altitude the growing season runs long and cool. Grapes ripen slowly and retain the natural acidity needed for traditional method wine: the base wine needs enough acid to carry the long lees ageing without going flat, and Bossolasco delivers it. The label reads Alta Langa DOCG, which places these bottles inside the mountain tier of Piedmont sparkling wine, distinct from the Asti and Canelli DOCG wines made lower in the same hills.
How it is made
The cellar
Contratto farms the Ave and Moncurto parcels in Bossolasco exclusively organically. The yield cap of thirty hectolitres per hectare forces tight vine work and the removal of excess fruit: fewer grapes per vine mean what remains concentrates its sugars, acidity, and flavour compounds more fully before harvest.
The cellar process for both principal sparkling wines begins in temperature-controlled stainless steel for the first fermentation, which preserves the natural acidity and fresh fruit character of the high-altitude grapes without oak influence. The wine then goes into bottle for its second fermentation and lees ageing. The Millesimato spends at least thirty months in bottle on lees. The Blanc de Blancs approaches thirty-six months. During that time, autolysis, the breakdown of spent yeast cells, releases compounds that add texture, breadth, and a toasty, brioche-edged complexity to the finished wine. Both wines are disgorged as pas dose: no dosage is added, so the residual sweetness comes only from the grapes, and the wine's acid line is unmasked.
What they make
Millesimato Alta Langa DOCG Pas Dose is composed of eighty percent Pinot Noir and twenty percent Chardonnay from the Ave vineyard at seven hundred to seven hundred and fifty metres. It ages on lees for at least thirty months. The Pinot Noir majority gives the wine a fuller body than a blanc de blancs: red fruit, some weight through the mid-palate, and a fine bead produced by the second fermentation in bottle. No dosage means the wine's freshness, any grip from the Pinot Noir skin contact at pressing, and the lees-derived texture are all present without sweetness to balance them. The wine reads dry and mineral, with the autolytic character built over thirty-plus months.
Red Vermouth dates to 1920, made from a botanical blend including herbs and spices macerated into a base wine and aged in steel. The house describes it as soft, faceted, and clean. It represents the historical product line that ran alongside sparkling wine through the house's first century.
Wines to try
First bottle
Start with the Millesimato Alta Langa DOCG Pas Dose. It is eighty percent Pinot Noir from the Ave vineyard at seven hundred to seven hundred and fifty metres, aged for at least thirty months on lees in the Canelli cellars, then disgorged without dosage. The Pinot Noir majority gives it more body and red-fruit presence than you expect from a Piedmont sparkling wine, the lees ageing adds a brioche softness behind the acidity, and the pas dose disgorgement leaves the wine completely dry. It covers the three things Contratto does: high-altitude organic viticulture in Alta Langa, extended lees contact in those historic underground tunnels, and no sweetness correction at the end.