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Tag: Montelupo Albese

  • The Claudio Bressano farm

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    The Claudio Bressano farm is a family-driven farm, whose main activity is cultivating hazel nuts besides cultivating some vines for domestic use and raising Piemontese oxen, which are native to Piemonte.

    The passion for raising Piemontese oxen was passed on to Claudio from his father, a great expert on this subject.

    Claudio buys the best available calves, when they are weaned, from selected farms. When the animals arrive at his farm, they weigh about 200 kilogrammes, while they weigh about 600-700 kilogrammes after 20-25 months. The animals are only fed the best, available food. In fact, all the animal feed is cultivated at the farm in order to guarantee high quality meat only.

    Cultivating food for the animals, which are producing manure to be used as fertilizer on the farm gives a very tight cycle: hay obtained from meadow grass, maize, field beans and barley cultivated and milled at the farm, and everything being fertilized by a mix of manure and hay.

    Each ox had a yellow mark on one of its ears and I would like to know what they indicated since they seemed to contain more than just the typical cryptic numbers. Claudio patiently explained to me their meaning: the first symbols show the parents of the animal permitting a retrace of its genealogy, followed by a symbol indicating at which farm it was born, a serial number for a bovine register, last but not least, the name of the animal.

    In other words, this is a tiny livestock farming where man and animal stay in close contact with each other where the animals have first names like it was a big family.

    Claudio confided to us that he’s raising these animals because of his grand passion for doing it since it barely pays itself. In the past, raising livestock was an investment since in a year with a small harvest due to bad weather and consequently little food for man and animals, it was possible to sell the calves, but now life is different.

    In addition to breeding Piemontese oxen, they are also cultivating 2600 hazel nut trees, which as mentioned at the beginning, constitutes the main activity at this farm.

    After having harvested and dried the hazel nuts, they are sold to companies which use them as ingredients for confectionery and a diverse selection of foods.

    They are also cultivating Barbera and Dolcetto d’Alba vines for domestic use only.

  • “Giachino Vini” farm and guesthouse “Rainè”

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    I stayed at the guesthouse “Rainè” in autumn, a rather hectic period for the farmer Claudio Giachino and his family since the harvest, including hazel nuts from the hazel trees and grapes from the vines, takes place at this time of year.

    Late in the evening we could watch Claudio working and processing the grapes after the harvest. The bunches of grapes justly picked can’t wait or else they will overheat due to fermentation, meaning that the wine farmer has to work fast. After having emptied the plastic boxes with the bunches of grapes into a container, a horizontal, rotating screw forces them to enter a tube such that they can be pumped into a bigger container. Then, their stems are removed before being compressed in a crusher and then transported to big steel containers for the fermentation.

    The speed of the fermentation is decided by Mother Nature: thanks to the yeasts naturally occurring in the grapes, the must starts fermenting, the sugars contained in the pulp of the grapes start being transformed into alcohol, the tannins and the scents of the grape skins give off their characteristics to the must. A slow transformation takes place in the steel containers, while simultaneously characteristic smells starts spreading from the whole winery, smells which are often unknown to passersby.

    After having fermented 20-25 days, the must is separated from the marc or pomace, that is the solid parts of grapes, is separated from the liquid parts. Thereafter, the must is transferred to a clean steel container where it is allowed to rest such that any solid parts will settle at the base of the tank. Besides, the marc is compressed in order to recover any must still residing within it. Finally, the remaining solid parts are transported to a distillery for making grappa.

    This wine farm is producing the following types of wine:

    • Dolcetto d’Alba
    • Dolcetto d’Alba Rainè
    • Nebbiolo d’Alba

    In addition to cultivating vines, they are also growing hazel trees for their hazel nuts whose harvest is totally mechanized. The guest house located next to the farm has 5 apartments for rent, breakfast is included in the price, while dinner has to be paid separately.

    Claudio told me that before he met his wife Elena, he worked in a factory. Since her parents were managing this wine farm, he decided to leave the factory and, instead, start working as a full-time farmer. He started wine-making in 2001.