“One day hands-on at La Spinetta”: Saturday, September 4^th, 2010. 

Our first La Spinetta One Liter Club event, the La Spinetta Hands-On day, was held last Saturday. 42 enthusiastic wine lovers and members of the Club from 10 different countries joined us on this exciting and fun day.

The Moscato grapes had ripened just right, despite a cool period two weeks earlier, and the good weather promised to hold out for another bit. A blue sky and warm sunshine greeted our visitors as they arrived at the winery in Castagnole Lanze in the morning, where they met Giorgio, Giovanna and the rest of the La Spinetta staff.

After a brief tour of the cellar and facilities, we headed out to our Biancospino vineyard, not far from the winery, and, divided in four groups, began the grape harvest. Giovanna and Giorgio explained the work: Harvesting grapes is not a singular work, you work in a group along a row, two to a basket. Each bunch of the plump juicy Moscato grapes has to be laid carefully into the basket, after taking off leaves and any shriveled or rotten grapes. There weren’t that many bad grapes, but since Giovanna advised that the best way to assure they’re good is to try them, many random quality checks were done!

The sun was warm and the hill was steep, but our enthusiastic helpers managed to pick more than a tractor-load full, which we then destemmed and put into the press. The group proved to be not just hands-on but also curious, listening intently to Giorgio’s and Manuela’s explanations and asking many interested questions.

A good morning’s work made us hungry for lunch, and the generous picnic of Piemontese antipasti and Tuscan La Spinetta wines laid out on a big table under a chestnut tree was more than welcome. A friend of the family joined us with his guitar and sang Italian and Piemontese songs.

After a relaxing lunch overlooking hills and vineyards, Manuela and Eleonora took us on a walk through the Gallina vineyard in Neive, to see the Nebbiolo and Barbera vines ripen in sight of the tower of Barbaresco.

The day was crowned with a celebratory dinner. The traditional aperitivo, the start of any Piemontese evening, was laid out right in the middle of the La Spinetta Campé Barolo vineyard, and we toasted as the sun set over the rolling hills of the Langhe, striped with vineyards beneath sturdy castles and little towns.

Then a Piemontese feast awaited us at the winery. From carne cruda to vitello tonnato, tajarin al ragù and  coniglio al forno to cheese and fresh peaches, the dishes were mouthwateringly good, and matched perfectly, of course, with La Spinetta wines from Piemonte. Fun was also the blind tasting with wines brought along by our club members.

It was the perfect ending to a great day of sharing our passion and enthusiasm with many like-minded wonderful people – our La Spinetta One Liter Club members! We will be sure to repeat it!

"One Day Hands On", the first One Liter Club Event, click here for all the photos taken on this day

Events in 2011

Saturday May 7th, 2011: Second Hands-On Day at La Spinetta: warm sunshine, cool cellars and handmade agnolotti

We held the second Hands-On Day at La Spinetta, on a gorgeous warm and sunny spring day here in the Langhe. Fourteen One Liter Club members joined us this time, and once more, it was a wonderful and fun day that we enjoyed greatly.

Early in the morning, while it was still fairly cool, we watched Giorgio and Moro, our Belgian horse, plough a furrow along each vinerow to clean the space under the plants and help them to grow more easily. Then, in the sunny courtyard of our Campe winery in Grinzane Cavour (Barolo), Anja introduced the team and the winery.

Giovanna, our vineyard manager, explained to us her work in the vineyard, and how she is taking care of the vines throughout the year, from the first sprouting to preparing the plants for their winter rest. Then she took us to the vineyard – the Barolo vineyard of Campe – where we were able to try our own hands on the scusulé, the trimming of excessive leaf growth and cleaning up the vines. Giovanna showed us what to do: with a swift movement she took off the leaves below the just about recognizable tiny bunches of grapes, and broke away the double-branches and extra shoots. “It has to look like a window display, all neat and clean,” she explained. “Now you do it.”

How hard it was suddenly to decide for ourselves how much was right and how much was ‘troppo, troppo’ as Giovanna called it! But after the first timid moves – taking off a leaf at a time, and having it checked again by Giovanna and Giorgio – the club members soon began to move ahead more quickly, and even gain some praise from the keenly observing Giovanna.

For lunch, we went to the wonderful Osteria del Vignaiolo in Santa Maria (La Morra), a little township right in the middle of the Barolo zone. On the shaded terrace we ate Piemontese specialties prepared with the special light touch of the Osteria, accompanied by La Spinetta Toscana Vermentino 2009 and Barbera Gallina 2008 (of course from One Liter Bottles!).

In the afternoon, we visited the La Spinetta winery at Castagnole Lanze, where we were able to try some La Spinetta Barbera d’Asti Superiore Bionzo straight from the cask – an unusual experience to taste the young and fresh fruit that is still getting acquainted with the vigorous tannins and vanilla flavour of the oak.

Then we went to Canelli in the Asti region where we got a first introduction to the new La Spinetta project: the venerable Contratto winery with its great underground cellars full of slumbering spumante bottles. Mauro, the cellar master, showed us his skillful work of riddling the bottles to catch the sediment and finally disgorging it to leave behind only brilliant clear spumante wine. We also tasted the first La Spinetta/Contratto wines, to be released this June: a lively Blanc de Blanc from Chardonnay grapes, and a delicious and elegant Rosé of Pinot Nero grapes that managed to enchant even more than the stunning surroundings of the Contratto cellars.

As usual, an informal dinner at the Campe winery rounded off the day – relaxed and simple but sumptious all the same. Giovanna’s handmade agnolotti that she was shaping as we were arriving for the meal were served in Piemontese tradition without sauce in pristine linen napkins. The La Spinetta wines accompanied the dinner perfectly, right down to the Chardonnay Lidia with the tasty local artisan cheeses. 

Once more it has been wonderful to get to know our club members a little and to be able to share the passion and dedication for our work. We at La Spinetta are already looking forward to the next Hands-On Day on Saturday July 9, 2011.

There are still some places available for the Hands-On Day in July. On the day, we will be doing the Green Harvest in the vineyard: removing excessive bunches of grapes to let the vine concentrate all its efforts into a few select bunches. The dinner will be held for the first time in the elegant dining rooms of the Contratto winery in Canelli. To sign up, or if you have any questions, please email Anke at anke@la-spinetta.com.

Saturday, July 9th 2011: Third Hands-On Day at La Spinetta: warm sunshine, green harvest and 150 years of wine making

iter Club members came to our winery on a beautiful July weekend to help with the green harvest, and join us for a day of celebration.

The green harvest is done in midsummer when the grapes are still unripe, hard, grass-green berries, though already filling out into bunches. We were working in our Campe Barolo vineyard, where the Nebbiolo grapes were already hanging heavily in their characteristic shape of a long middle strand with two smaller side bunches or ‘ears’. Green harvest is a method to control – meaning reduce – the yield of a vine and a vineyard. At this point in the growing season, if some of the fruit is removed, the vine will not be able to produce more bunches, and so it will concentrate all of its efforts into the remaining

fruit, resulting in more flavourful grapes. Simply put, a vine plant can only process a certain amount of nutrients and produce a certain amount of flavour compounds. Having more fruit means distributing this amount of flavour between more grapes, which are then plumped up with more water. This in turn will mean diluted grape must to produce wine from – more, but more insipid and weak wine. Not the sort of quality that La Spinetta is aiming for. At La Spinetta, we are happy to produce a smaller amount of wine of greater quality, and therefore, doing a rigorous green harvest is an important step in our winemaking process. We realized just how strict our yield control actually is when one year, a fellow winemaker in the area asked us if we could help out with their green harvest, as they were short a few hands. We were happy to do this favour to our neighbors, and sent over a few of our skilled vineyard workers for a couple of days. To our surprise, they came back to us on the second day:

used to the La Spinetta way, they had trimmed the grape bunches in the same thorough manner as they would in our Barolo and Barbaresco vineyards, resulting in a far greater yield reduction as our neighbours were used to…

Green harvesting is indeed an activity that requires skill and good judgement. The actual cutting of the grapes is a simple task, the only necessary thing to remember is not to touch the grapes that are to remain on the vine: these are covered with a fine layer of silky dust that protects the fruit a little from the sun’s UV-rays. What is difficult with the green harvest is to decide how much to cut, and where. Simply counting the bunches is not enough, one must also consider the size and vigour of the vine for example: a hunched, gnarly grandfather of a vine will naturally have a limited production, for example. This is quite a lot of information to consider before making a decision – and quickly.

We refreshed ourselves with delicious Piemontese snacks and of course, La Spinetta wines, and enjoyed the good company and conversation, before taking a deserved afternoon break. 

As the sun started to set, we met up again, this time at the new winery of La Spinetta, the Contratto cellars at Canelli. After taking a tour of the beautiful historical cellars, where the new spumante wines of the La Spinetta portfolio are resting like sleeping beauties until their full maturation, we concluded the day with a festive dinner in the elegant dining rooms of the winery. 

Another wonderful opportunity to meet our One Liter Club members – we are already looking forward to the next one!