Why it matters
The producer
In the mid-1970s, a twenty-three-year-old woman named Josetta Saffirio decided to stop selling her family's Nebbiolo grapes to other winemakers and bottle them herself. Her family had farmed the Castelletto hillside in Monforte d'Alba for years without ever putting their name on a label. Josetta changed that. Wine production began in 1975, and ten years of work in the cellar brought the first Barolo to release in 1985, carrying a label she drew herself.
The estate now occupies five hectares on that same hillside in Monforte d'Alba, one of the eleven communes entitled to produce Barolo in the Langhe hills of southern Piemonte. Sara Vezza, who came to lead the estate in 1999 after a pause in production during the 1990s, has become one of the most visible women in Langhe winemaking. She rebuilt the range, completed organic certification across all vineyards, and in 2006 commissioned a new cellar built into the hillside with natural cork insulation, designed to stay cool without mechanical refrigeration.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Monforte d'Alba sits at the southwestern edge of the Barolo zone, where the Langhe hills rise steeply above the Belbo and Tanaro river valleys. The commune is known for producing Barolo with notable weight and dark fruit, shaped by its elevation and the predominantly calcareous soils that run through the hillside parcels.
The Castelletto hillside, where Josetta Saffirio's five hectares sit, is in Monforte d'Alba. The Barolo appellation label indicates Nebbiolo grown in one of those eleven specified communes, aged for a minimum period in oak before release. Castelletto as a named hillside locates the wine within Monforte's particular soils and slope.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
All five hectares are organically farmed, with no synthetic herbicides, pesticides, or fertilisers in the vineyards. The Castelletto parcels are planted to Nebbiolo for Barolo, with a small half-hectare holding of old-vine Rossese Bianco, a native Monforte variety that came close to extinction before its rediscovery in the 1970s.
Red wines ferment on indigenous yeast without temperature correction using commercial cultures. Maceration time is extended to extract tannin and colour from Nebbiolo. No fining agents are added, and the wines are not filtered before bottling. The Alta Langa sparkling wine ferments in bottle by the traditional method, the same technique used in Champagne, with the second fermentation producing its bubbles and its bread crust character developing during lees contact.
Wines to know
The range in view
Nebbiolo runs through almost every bottle. Barolo Castelletto is made from the Castelletto hillside in Monforte d'Alba, with long maceration in the cellar and extended ageing, then bottled without filtration.
The Langhe Nebbiolo DOC is an earlier-access version of that same grape on the same hillside. It shows candied cherry, sour cherry, rose petal and dried fruit on the nose and could use time in bottle to more fully harmonize. The Langhe Rosato is made from Nebbiolo too, a pale rosé with violet, raspberry and tropical fruit on the nose and fresh acidity through the palate.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with the Langhe Nebbiolo. It comes from the same organically farmed Nebbiolo on the Castelletto hillside as the Barolo, vinified with the same indigenous yeast and the same decision not to fine or filter. The wine shows candied cherry, sour cherry and rose petal on the nose, with tannin and acidity. It shows what Josetta Saffirio does with Nebbiolo before that grape is given the full Barolo treatment, and the Barolo is the next bottle.