Cascina Degli Ulivi

From Louis/Dressner:

 

Gavi, one of the foremost denominations of white wine in Italy and one of the first white wines to be granted the DOCG status, is entirely from the Cortese grape which is an indigenous grape to the southern Piedmont province of Alessandria where it also shows its finest expression. After the phylloxera epidemic wiped out the more widely planted red Dolcetto vines in the early 1900’s in the rolling hillsides of the towns that surround the town of Gavi, the majority of replanting was made with the white Cortese in order to satisfy demand from the nearby Genoa and the Ligurian coast that lie directly south over the coastal mountains. During the 1960’s, Gavi enjoyed tremendous success on the domestic and international markets thanks to some fine producers in the region. Over the next twenty years, however, competition from other white wine producing regions of Italy, higher yield allowances by the DOC and less scrupulous winemaking led to a glut of commercial and uninspired Gavis in the 1980’s and ‘90’s.

 

Cascina degli Ulivi produces wines from vineyards of around 11 hectares that have been worked using biodynamic viticultural methods since 1985. The estate has been in the Bellotti family since the 1930’s and is now run by Stefano and Zita Bellotti. They are committed to the fundamental beliefs of Biodynamism and, in the Gavi town of Tassarolo, run the estate as an organic farm with a restaurant and accommodations where practically everything served is biodynamic organically raised. “We consider that the soil is a ‘companion organism’ for everything that lives. In working our vines, we foster the potential harmony of all those forces that contribute to the flow of vitality (of the vine),” according to Stefano. Their hard work and dedication is immediately evident in the vineyards where Stefano’s parcels are adjacent to other producers of the area and form which the health of the vines is immediately apparent to the eye.