Azienda Vitivinicola Nervi

Nebbiolo under Conterno’s hand

Nebbiolo comes into the rebuilt cellar under Roberto Conterno, proprietor and winemaker at Azienda Vitivinicola Nervi in Gattinara. His stewardship here began in 2018, when he acquired the estate and brought the long view of Giacomo Conterno into a different Piedmontese altitude, a different soil, and a different history of Spanna. The house itself is older than the current cellar. Luigi Nervi founded it in 1906, and the Nervi family’s work became part of the appellation’s administrative as well as agricultural memory: Italo Nervi helped secure DOC recognition for Gattinara in 1967 and DOCG status in 1990. Conterno did not arrive to erase that line. He arrived at a property whose older bottles had already made the case for the place, then rebuilt the wine-making, maturation, and cellaring facilities between early 2019 and mid-2021. The gesture is one of correction and pressure, not spectacle: keep the estate’s old obligation to Gattinara, give the fruit a more exact cellar, and let Nebbiolo carry the distance between Barolo and these northern slopes.

Porphyry, clay, and Spanna

The work begins in 28.5 hectares of Gattinara DOCG vineyard, on porphyry- and clay-rich ground shaped by the old Valsesia super-volcano and the raised gravels of the higher slopes. Molsino and Valferana sit among the estate’s principal crus, with Garavoglie and Casacce also in the holding; Valferana’s name reaches back to 1242. At 400 meters above sea level, the vineyard base includes 14 hectares of high-quality plantings, divided into 4.6 hectares of Barbera and 9.4 hectares of Nebbiolo. Here Nebbiolo is also Spanna, and the discipline of the appellation is part of the blend: Gattinara must carry at least 90% Nebbiolo, with up to 10% Bonarda di Gattinara and no more than 4% Vespolina. The cellar has stainless steel for controlled vinification, a barrel program that includes Slavonian oak, and the aging frame required by the DOCG. The point is not to make a louder wine. It is to hold acidity, tannin, and site long enough for Gattinara to speak in its own register.

The cellar beneath the hill

The estate feels split between eras in a useful way: old Piedmontese gravity outside, new precision inside. The vineyards climb around Gattinara with the Torre delle Castelle above the town, a reminder that vines were worth guarding here long before this house existed. In the cellar, the rebuilt spaces put the practical work first, wine making, maturation, then time. The tasting room and the on-site restaurant add a modern layer, but they do not change the center of the place. This remains a winery organized around Nebbiolo’s patience. The room is quiet because the work asks for it; the wines are not rushed toward softness, and the cellar does not need to announce its seriousness. It is there in Molsino, Valferana, and the steady pressure of Gattinara DOCG.