Cascina Val del Prete

Cascina Val del Prete (valley of the priest) takes its name from when it was the home to the exiled bishop of Asti in 1850. The estate was purchased in 1977 by Bartolomeo and Carolina Roagna, who, at the time, were sharecropping the farm, which was planted to cereals. The property is a natural amphitheatre and the first thing they did was to plant the south facing slopes to vines. Their son, Mario, is now in charge of the estate, which has just under 11 hectares of vines, all farmed biodynamically and carrying organic certification. Roero sits to the north of Alba, with Barolo and Barbaresco just to the south. The main difference is that the soils of Roero are sandy, which gives wines with much of the character of Barbaresco, but with less intensity of tannin.