La Spinetta

Cellar and ownership in the same hands

Giorgio Rivetti keeps cellar and ownership close at La Spinetta in Castagnole Delle Lanze, working as head winemaker where the family name sits on the labels. His training runs through Scuola Enologica di Alba, then Burgundy and Bordeaux, but the station he holds now is firmly Piedmontese: Moscato d’Asti, Barbera d’Asti, Barbaresco and Barolo, each tied to the house’s progression from aromatic white wine into a broader red-wine range.

La Spinetta began in 1977, founded in Castagnole delle Lanze by Giuseppe and Lidia Rivetti. Their sons Carlo, Bruno and Giorgio now run the estate. The name refers to the original winery’s raised position, roughly the top of the hill, between Astigiano and Langhe. That origin matters here because the house did not begin by announcing itself through Nebbiolo. It built its first public identity around Moscato and Barbera d’Asti, then let the reds widen the frame. Rivetti’s role keeps that history in the cellar rather than treating it as family ornament.

From Moscato to the red cellar

The early line still gives the place its grammar. Bricco Quaglia and Biancospino belong to the Moscato side of La Spinetta, while Barbera d’Asti Ca’ di Pian is cited as the first red wine, produced in 1985. From there the range moves into Barbaresco and Barolo without severing the older work. Barolo Vürsu Campè 2018 and La Spinetta Barbaresco Gallina DOCG sit beside Moscato d’Asti and Barbera, not above them as replacements.

The estate works across four locations, three in Piedmont and one in Tuscany, with one public account giving about 165 hectares and roughly 650,000 bottles. The Castagnole delle Lanze cellar remains the point of return, the place the house presents first when it speaks of its visitor experience and its multi-site philosophy. Giorgio Rivetti keeps the sequence legible at La Spinetta in Castagnole Delle Lanze, from Moscato d’Asti and Barbera d’Asti Ca’ di Pian through Barbaresco and Barolo.

The hill between Langhe and Monferrato

The room at Castagnole delle Lanze belongs to a borderland, not only administratively but in the glass. Langhe and Monferrato press against each other here, and La Spinetta’s identity has long depended on that overlap: Moscato from one inherited current, Barbera from another, Nebbiolo brought forward through Barbaresco and Barolo. The cellar’s setting is not a backdrop. It is the reason the house can speak in several Piedmont dialects without sounding divided.

The original winery was later renovated and expanded in the mid-1980s, a practical change that matches the shift from a narrower white-wine beginning toward a wider estate program. What remains constant is the family structure around the work. Giorgio Rivetti’s parallel ownership of Indigenous Selections, founded in 2006, extends that reach, but the bench-side fact at La Spinetta is simpler: the head winemaker still signs his work through Moscato d’Asti, Barbera d’Asti Ca’ di Pian, Barolo Vürsu Campè 2018 and Barbaresco Gallina DOCG.