Emanuele Gambino

Rows read before the cellar

Emanuele Gambino walks the rows as winemaker at Emanuele Gambino in Santo Stefano Belbo, then carries that reading into the cellar. Since 2016, Emanuele Gambino has worked as farmer and grape vinifier at the farm that bears his name, keeping the method close to the vine before it becomes cellar work. The route here did not begin as a formal winemaking apprenticeship. He moved from law into agriculture after returning to the memory of his grandparents’ rural life, then built the farm at San Martino in Costigliole d’Asti while holding Tenuta Piansrej in Santo Stefano Belbo as the other half of the estate.

That split matters. Santo Stefano Belbo is the ground for Moscato, with Piansrej purchased in 2010 and replanted in 2012. Costigliole d’Asti gives the cellar its Barbera footing, with San Martino acquired in 2016 and set on clay and limestone at 270 meters. Gambino’s own wording is plain: he personally vinifies his grapes, with quality, sustainability and genuineness as working principles. The house identity follows that sentence more than any borrowed grandeur. It is personal vinification, estate fruit, and a farmer’s accountability to the season.

Two estates, one organic discipline

The program is small by design, drawn from about 13 hectares between Langhe and Monferrato. The house grows Barbera, Nebbiolo, Grignolino, Moscato Bianco, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, with all grapes coming from the estate rather than purchased fruit. Piansrej was certified organic in 2019. San Martino has been in conversion, with certification expected after the 2024 harvest. In the vineyard, the stated discipline is to avoid synthetic products and herbicides, and to favor biodiversity and natural balance.

In the cellar, the vessels mark the range of the work. Reds move through oak barrels, while Mò Frem, the dry Moscato first made in 2020, ages in terracotta amphorae. That choice pulls Moscato away from a simple aromatic register and toward body, acidity and balance. Barbera d’Asti remains the anchor, including Barbera d’Asti Superiore and the bottlings tied to Costigliole d’Asti. The house also points toward a Nizza DOCG from the 2024 vintage, a future reserve that keeps the Barbera side of the cellar under pressure to deepen rather than broaden.

The cellar on the ridge

The winery works from renovated rural farmhouses on a ridge between Langhe and Monferrato, with Monvì Wine Relais set beside the wine work rather than apart from it. The place looks out across the Tanaro valley, toward castles, churches, medieval towers and the Alps when the air allows. It is not a theatrical cellar. Its luxury is the quiet of a small house that can keep its own fruit in view.

The tasting room life belongs to the relais, with the vineyards close enough to make the glass feel less abstract. Around San Martino, the landscape holds Barbera, Nebbiolo, Grignolino and the international varieties on clay-limestone soils. At Piansrej, Moscato sits under the medieval tower of Santo Stefano Belbo, facing Moncucco hill. The two estates give the place its working rhythm: one side aromatic and amphora-led, the other structured by Barbera and the red-wine cellar.

A reserve still taking shape

Gambino’s next stated move is the Nizza DOCG from the 2024 vintage, a reserve that keeps the focus on Barbera rather than a wider catalogue. Until that wine arrives, the clearest reading of the house remains in the contrast between Mò Frem and Barbera d’Asti Superiore, between terracotta amphora and the clay-limestone rows of San Martino.