Cascina delle Rose

Cascina delle Rose sits on the crest where Rio Sordo meets Tre Stelle, in the Barbaresco commune. Giovanna Rizzolio's grandparents bought the property for family-consumption wine in 1948; Giovanna moved there in the early 1980s and formally took over from the extended family in 1992, which is when the estate became a commercial winery. She was one of the forces behind the official recognition of Tre Stelle as a distinct cru in 2006. Since 2017 she has handed operations to her sons Davide Sobrino (b. 1987, vineyard and cellar) and Riccardo (b. 1992, commercial); her husband Italo runs the family agriturismo.

The estate runs to between 6.5 and 7.5 hectares total (sources diverge), with 5.5 under vine - around thirty to thirty-five thousand bottles a year. Key crus: Rio Sordo, planted in 1958, west-facing, a metre of topsoil over limestone, producing a fuller-bodied Barbaresco; Tre Stelle, plantings from 1972, 1978, 1997 and 2004, south-west-facing on thin topsoil, lithe and taut; and Marcorino in Neive, leased in 2018 and first released 2024, including a 1944 Nebbiolo parcel. Farming is organic from the start - Giovanna worked without synthetic chemistry in the early 1990s when that was unusual for Barbaresco - low total SO2 (20-50 mg/L), hand-harvest.

In the cellar: parcel ferments in stainless without temperature control, thirty-day macerations for Barbaresco (cappello sommerso 2016-2021, delestage from 2022), aging twenty-two to twenty-four months in neutral large Slavonian Garbalotto or Swiss Suppinger botti, another three to six months in bottle. The range: Barbaresco Rio Sordo, Barbaresco Tre Stelle, Barbaresco Marcorino, Donna Elena Barbera d'Alba Superiore (named for Giovanna's sister), Langhe Nebbiolo, Dolcetto d'Alba and a little Arneis. One of very few producers to bottle Tre Stelle as a single cru.