| Dogliani and Dolcetto Wines of Piedmont | | | | By: Subhash Arora | << back  Page 3 of 5 next >> |
San Fereolo
Take the case of Nicoletta Bocca, the owner of a small winery named San Fereolo. Daughter of a well known and powerful political journalist, she chanced upon this area in the early nineties while on a visit. She fell in love with the place so much that she decided to set up a winery here. Initially partnering with her neighbour, she was so smitten with the concept of organic farming and bio-dynamic process of wine making that she studied the techniques on her own and has become a completely bio-dynamic producer, though not certified yet.
Not that she cares whether she gets it or not. She admits, ’Piemontese are very stubborn people and this shows in our wines too. I know the Italian authorities are very strict, chauvinistic and unwilling to give a certificate easily, especially when they know it is a woman.’ She does not know or like to admit that this is a universal phenomenon; the bio-dynamic community is very close-clustered and suspicious of those wanting to join in. She has nevertheless, announced that she will continue making sure that everything she does in the vineyard or winery is biodynamic.
Stubborn that she may be in her own way, Nicoletta is also an example of the stuff Dogliani wine producers are made of. Not only does she is a farmer who runs her complete winery, including the marketing (it can get very frustrating at times, she admits, ‘when people do not give the full respect our wines deserve’), she works on the computer, makes complete power point presentation on behalf of Bottega del Vino Dolcetto di Dogliani, the association of producers from the region, and she also found time to help the Bottega organise a trip of foreign journalists to make the world take a note of its wines.
Going beyond the call of this extra duty, she even volunteered to take a well-known woman journalist from Calgary and me to a recently opened concept supermarket called Eataly, a designer chocolate factory owned by Guido Gubbino, followed by a cross-country drive via Alba to Roero area near Barolo, where after tasting of some Arneis wines from Malvirà we had dinner at a Michelin star restaurant; and she had to drive us back keeping the Italian laws on drunken driving in mind.
Abbona Anna Maria
Bocca is not the only woman entrepreneur in Dogliani producing quality wines. Abbona Anna Maria is an internationally acclaimed winery owned by the woman of the same name. Anna Maria is a serious winemaker who with the help of her husband makes award winning wines. When I told her of the wine women’s association called ‘De Donne del Vino’ and wondered if she was a part of it, her polite but firm reply was that she had no time for frivolous lunch meetings once or twice a month that they were to have been conducting. She quickly added that she had heard they had become seriously recently and she won’t mind looking at joining.
Poderi Luigi Einaudi
Ask any Italian if he has heard of Luigi Einaudi and he will laugh at you. With almost every big Italian city including Torino having a street named after him, how could he not know Luigi Einaudi, the first President of Italian Republic?
Einaudi was from Dogliani and his mounted statue decorates the big committee room in the Town Hall, where Mayor Gallo had welcomed a group of visiting journalists earlier this month at a wine tasting organised by the Bottega in the basement wine cellar of this historical building.
Einaudi was a well known economist who had studied in England and had written hundreds of books and articles on Economics.
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