Description
From a 0.25-hectare own-rooted plot in Berri near La Morra, the 2020 Elvio Cogno Barbera d’Alba Pre-Phylloxera is a Piedmont red from Italy made entirely from Barbera under the Barbera d’Alba DOC. Elvio Cogno founded the modern estate in 1990 after leaving Marcarini and purchasing the eighteenth-century Cascina Nuova on Bricco Ravera near Novello; today Nadia Cogno and Valter Fissore direct the winery. The vineyard preserves ungrafted Vitis vinifera Barbera vines more than a century old, propagated by cuttings, at 520 meters and trained to Guyot at about 4,500 vines per hectare. Sandy and chalky soils in this small plot are cited as a natural factor in phylloxera resistance, while low yields and manual work guide cultivation. Grapes are vinified in temperature-controlled stainless steel with automatic pump-overs, then aged 12 months in large Slavonian oak casks, 60 days on lees, and six months in bottle. The cuvée places Cogno’s work on Langhe tradition within a focused preservation of pre-phylloxera Barbera material.