Alessandro Ceretto, the third generation of the family, joined the business in 2000. At that time he was fresh out of oenology school and capturing the terroir in his wines was his main objective. However, this posed a problem: he had to put down the formulas and techniques he learned at school, which just created standardised, industrial wines. Instead, following the path of French producers like Pierre Overnoy and Nicolas Joly, Bodegas Ceretto began to work by taking things away. The result of this work is wines like Ceretto Nebbiolo d’Alba Bernardina.

Ceretto Nebbiolo d’Alba Bernardina is a red wine made in the DOC Nebbiolo d’Alba, in the Piedmont region (in the north), in Las Langhe, an area in the province of Cuneo, very close to the Tanaro river. This region, designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2014, is home to grey and white marl soils (ancient marine sediments rich in minerals and trace elements) and a climate marked by very hot and humid summers, with cold winters and wet misty mornings. This is where the excellent quality Nebbiolo grapes are born. Likewise, aware of the importance of the raw material to make a good wine, the Ceretto winery has been using natural methods based on biodynamics for years. “A healthy vine can only grow in healthy soil: like us, the vine breathes and is fed from it.”

With a good raw material, the work at the Ceretto winery is much easier and always with the same focus: to intervene as little as possible. The grapes are harvested entirely by hand from the Monsordo-Bernardina estate on the outskirts of the town of Alba. Since 2008 Ceretto Nebbiolo d’Alba Bernardina macerates and ferments with native yeasts from an already-fermenting must for 20 days in stainless steel tanks. The aging process takes place in already used wooden barrels.

The vines of this Nebbiolo surround the Cantina Ceretto, are of great quality and are located in a plot adjacent to the Barolo area.