Braida di Giacomo Bologna

Braida - a family story full of passion and joie de vivre

It all began with the great-grandfather Giuseppe Bologna and his nickname"Braida", which he got from playing the "Pallone elastico", a typical Piedmontese ball game similar to fistball, at markets and church festivals.
His son Giacomo Bologna inherited from him the nickname and the vineyards, but above all an unconditional love for the terroir and its wine. Thus, on September 1, 1961, the winery"Braida di Giacomo Bologna" was founded, Giacomo dared to go new ways, was the first to put the wines of the grape variety Barbera for aging in French barriques, which at that time in Italy almost amounted to a revolution, but today is very common. His intuition proved him right: he created wines which today belong to the flagships of Piedmont and the Italian wine scene.

1961 is the date of the first harvest of the lively Barbera del Monferrato "La Monella" that Giacomo Bologna decided to bottle. In 1969 Giacomo presented his wine at the Douja d'Or national wine competition in Asti and won the gold medal, which allowed him to participate free of charge in the fairs of Genoa, Turin and Milan, where he compared himself with other producers on the subject of Barbera.
From the beginning of 1982, Giacomo began experimenting with his innovative idea of Barbera-Barrique pairing: The vintage was exceptional; When the wine, Bricco dell'Uccellone, came out of barrique, Californian oenologist André Tchelistcheff arrived in Italy, approved it and proclaimed its success. Two other Babera wines were born in these years at the Rocchetta Tanaro winery: the Bricco della Bigotta in 1985 and the Ai Suma in 1989, obtained from a late harvest of the grapes (end of October). The three Braida reserves are vinified only in the best years.

In 1988 the family bought the Serra dei Fiori vineyard in Trezzo Tinella, which is run jointly with the brothers Renzo and Valerio Giacosa. With the help of viticulture and enology teacher Roberto Macaluso, friend and forerunner in the defence of native vines, they planted white varieties, including Nascetta, and launched the Braida white wines project.

Barbera - from head to toe...

To this day, the winery follows the philosophy and life vision of Giacomo and Anna Bologna, the close relationship with the wine, the region, the terroir and the friends.
In the meantime, the third generation, the siblings Raffaella and Giuseppe Bologna, both oenologists, continue on the path with an incredible amount of love, joie de vivre and dedication, and with their extraordinary and award-winning wines, they help Barbera to achieve fame and attention, through quality and value, which otherwise seem to be reserved for grape varieties with a more international reputation. They are also supported by Raffaella's husband Norbert Reinisch, an Austrian doctor, WSET sommelier and responsible for sales in foreign markets.
Raffaella is a member of the "Donne del Vino", the national association of Italian women vintners, wine women, gastronomes and wine journalists.

The vineyards of the Braida winery

The Braida vineyards are located between Monferrato Asti and Langhe. The heart of the vineyards are the Rocchetta Tanaro vineyards, the soils are of medium texture, with sand and clay in almost equal parts; from here are the precious crus Bricco dell'Uccellone, Bricco della Bigotta and Montebruna. Other vineyards are found in Castelnuovo Calcea and Costigliole d'Asti, also in Monferrato, loose and light soils of calcareous sand in the first case, clay-limestone with excellent hillside in the second. In the Langhe, Moscato is grown on the predominantly sandy-limestone soils. The production of still white wines, marketed under the Tenuta Serra dei Fiori brand, comes from the loose soils rich in sand mixed with limestone marl of Trezzo Tinella.

The vineyards in detail:

Monferrato Astigiano:

• Rocchetta Tanaro: 160 m, soils of sand and clay
• Castelnuovo Calcea: 230 metres above sea level, loose soils of calcareous sands
• Costigliole d'Asti: 240 m, loamy calcareous soil

Langhe:

• Mango d'Alba: 500 m, calcareous sandy soils
• Trezzo Tinella: 450 m, loose, sandy soils with calcareous marl