Rive Barbera D’Asti
The Vineyard:
The Barbera fruit in Rive Barbera is sourced mainly from the Rive (Piemontese for ‘very steep’) and the Baldizzone vineyards.
These vineyards are in the communes of Montabone and Castel Boglione respectively. The Rive Vineyard is situated at an altitude of 450m with south facing slopes and clay soils, producing low crops, around 50 hl/ha, from 50 year old vines. The Baldizzone Vineyard also faces south, but is more gently sloping, with 70 year old vines producing low cropped fruit from clay soils.
The Science Bit:
The grapes for Rive Barbera are hand-picked, de-stemmed and crushed then inoculated with selected yeasts. The must is fermented in temperature controlled, stainless steel vats with pumping over four times a day. The wine is pressed just before dryness and then racked to a mixture of new (2/3) and one year old (1/3) French oak barriques, where it undergoes malo-lactic fermentation and is aged for 18 months. The wine is left to develop in bottle for 6 months before being released.
