ACCORNERO VINI

Grignolino first, from the same rows

Ermanno Accornero watches maturation before he decides the cellar’s pace. As winemaker at ACCORNERO VINI in Vignale Monferrato, Italy, he starts with the estate rows, not with a recipe. Ermanno Accornero says it plainly: “The grapes always come from these vineyards.” At Ca’ Cima, that sentence carries the weight of a family estate that calls itself Viticoltori dal 1897, after Bartolomeo Accornero purchased the farm in Vignale Monferrato. The line runs through Giuseppe, Giovanni Battista Angelo Accornero, and Giulio Accornero, with Mariuccia and the sons Ermanno and Massimo named in the present family generation. The house describes five generations of proprietor growers, a phrase that matters here because the wines are built from estate fruit and from a small set of Monferrato varieties that have stayed close to the place. Grignolino sits at the center of Ermanno’s work, with Bricco del Bosco and Bricco del Bosco Vigne Vecchie among the cited expressions. Barbera holds its own ground through Bricco Battista and Giulin, while Freisa, Malvasia di Casorzo, Ruché, Cortese, Chardonnay, Nebbiolo and other labels extend the estate’s range without moving its center of gravity.

Ripeness before intervention

The vineyard work at ACCORNERO VINI follows the old Monferrato discipline of Guyot pruning, then selection in the rows. The estate farms between 20 and 25 hectares under vine at Ca’ Cima, with organic cultivation, no chemical fertilizers or herbicides, and natural fertilizers used in the soil program. Green harvesting happens in August, when the best clusters are chosen and the crop is brought into line with the year. Hand harvesting follows in September-October. Ermanno’s own wording stays close to that calendar: “We’re very attentive to the maturation of the grape.” In the cellar, the house pairs contemporary equipment with traditional vinification, a practical combination rather than a stylistic argument. The estate’s declared hierarchy is fruit from its own vineyards, classic denominations, and a cellar asked to preserve what the rows have already set in motion. Annual production is around 100,000 bottles, enough to give the family range breadth while keeping the work tied to named sites and native varieties.

The cellar below Ca’ Cima

The estate sits in the rolling countryside of Vignale Monferrato, with the cellar and agriturismo gathered at Ca’ Cima rather than separated into a visitor face and a working back. The vocabulary of the place is agricultural before it is decorative: rows, pruning, cluster selection, cellar, bottle. In the tasting room, Grignolino does not arrive as an abstract regional lesson; it arrives with Bricco del Bosco on the label and with Ermanno’s insistence that the grapes come from these vineyards. Bricco Battista gives Barbera del Monferrato Superiore DOCG its own bench-side counterpoint. The room is part of the estate’s rhythm, but the vineyard remains the first station. When the next vintage comes in from Ca’ Cima, the measure will be the same patient thing: the maturation of the grape.