04-09-2013

Truly biodynamic

A visit to Bellotti’s Cascina degli Ulivi. Discovering the meanings of a sometimes misunderstood term

Stefano Bellott’s Cascina degli Ulivi  in Strada

Stefano Bellott’s Cascina degli Ulivi in Strada Mazzola 14 in Novi Ligure (Alessandria), tel. +39.0143.744598. Their strong point is the wine, but you should not neglect the restaurant. And you can also sleep in one of the four rooms of the agritourism, conceived coherently with green architecture indications

We’re in the countryside around Novi Ligure, Alessandria. Hills, vineyards, green fields. And the smell of nature mixed with the aroma of freshly baked bread. We’re at Cascina degli Ulivi, a farm spreading over 35 hectares, of which twenty are destined to vine growing. Here, since 1984 the biodynamic method has been adopted, ensuring the maximum respect for plants and soil in order to obtain healthy, ripe and tasty products. In the vineyards, there’s very little use of copper (less than 2kg per hectare per year) and powdered sulphur. Vinification in the cellar is conducted without the use of oenological additives (including selected yeasts) and without adding sulphur dioxide. Besides wines, vegetables and fruits and cereals are also produced together with breeding courtyard animals and cattle.

Patron Stefano Bellotti, the president of the Italian branch of Renaissance des Appellations association

Patron Stefano Bellotti, the president of the Italian branch of Renaissance des Appellations association

A well-finished agritourism with 4 rooms – built coherently with green architecture indications – and a restaurant in which it is possible to taste the farm’s products (including the lovely bread, made with the flours from the cereals farmed here and from einkorn wheat) completes the picture. Stefano Bellotti is its creator and he’s also the president of the Italian association of biodynamic wine-producers Renaissance des Appellations, founded in 2001 by Nicolas Joly. A few words by Bellotti are enough to feel his passion for his territory and his work, to understand his certainty with regards to the importance of agriculture in the world in which we live and in our health. Not only that: he manages to express and share concepts that a beginner would not easily understand with extraordinary simplicity.

Listening to him is a pleasure. Just like when we discovered, together with him, that the clayey earth has a damp aroma, just like the one you can smell in the cellar, to put it simply, because it is rich in humus. Bellotti explained to us that he works every other line of vines and uses a biodynamic mixture called cow horn manure to facilitate the earth’s functionality. As for vinification, in the cellar, even during fermentation, he uses 90% used barrels made with oak and acacia, as well as steel tanks.

There are different wines produced. White wines are mostly obtained from Cortese grapes, from Semplicemente Vino Belloti Bianco created to be easily drinkable, a match for everyday meals, to wines obtained from 60 year old vineyards such as Gavi, Filagnotti and Montemarino. To a lesser extent, other grape varieties serve to produce A demua, which in the dialect of Genoa means "fun" and "play", inviting people to be distracted from their daily problems with a good glass of this nectar, as well as La Merla Bianca, in which Sauvignon blanc and Traminer aromatico create a dry and aromatic wine, with fruity notes and a good sapidity, freshness and persistence on the palate, and the Moscato passito.

The power ot the soil

The power ot the soil

Among red wines, Semplicemente Vino Bellotti Rosso, made with Barbera and Dolcetto grapes, is created with the same concept as its homonymous Bianco; Nibiò Terre Bianche, Nibiò Terre Rosse (from 50 year old vineyards) and Nibiò Vigna Pinolo (from 90 year old vineyards) produced uniquely with Dolcetto Grasparossa grapes, represent the traditional local wine. A larger percentage of Barbera, together with minimal quantities of Dolcetto and Ancellotta, are used to produce Mounbè, a structured red wine that can match a mixed selection of boiled meat, for instance, and to produce Etoile du Raisin, a rare wine, a bottle to be profoundly enjoyed, tasting this intense, full bodied, persistent nectar with its almost eternal fruity and spicy notes… This is place worth visiting and enjoying again.

Cascina degli Ulivi
Strada Mazzola 14
15067 Novi Ligure (Alessandria)
+39.0143.744598


In cantina

Stories of men, women and bottles that enrich the galaxy of wine, in Italy and in the world

by

Lisa Marchesi