Parusso

The history of our family has evolved, from a family of farmers to a family of vintners, but always taking the advices and values our parents gave us since we were children. When we read an old document from 1901 we are overwhelmed by emotion. It’s about the property’s transfer of the Mariondino plot, the first vineyard bought by our grandfather Gaspare Parusso. We think that everything goes started at that precise moment.

Few years later in 1925, the family bought the “Rovella” farmhouse where our cellar now rises up above the Rocche vineyard. It was in 1971 that our father Armando started to produce wine from his grapes and put the wine in bottles with his own label. Before that, most of the production was sold in bulk and the rest was used by family and friends. In 1986 Marco finished enological school in Alba, and three years later, in 1989, our father bought the Munie vineyard in the Bussia hamlet. At that moment, probably without fully realizing it, we were beginning to change the history of our family; from a family of farmers we were becoming a family of vintners, but always deeply treasuring the connection with our origins.

Thereafter we embarked on a long road, a path of devotion, work, and passion, with a constant desire to improve experimenting with new methods, while discovering at the same time old traditions, forgotten arts, combining technological progress and traditions in order to reach our objective. Our goal is to produce very elegant, fine, well-balanced wines with a strong identity that reveal all the experiences, lessons, and values we have learned over the course of time.

We come from a unique terroir, the Langhe territory, where the Nebbiolo grape variety best shows its qualities. We grow up in the Bussia hamlet in the village of Monforte d’Alba in Cascina Rovella.

We are located in the heart of the Barolo district where the two types of soils, Tortonian and Elvezian, have formed hills which mingle and blend together in a perfect union. The Langhe Terroir is characterized by several types of soil: chalk, clay, sand and marl. This makes each vineyard different from another and, combined with other important characteristics such as exposure, altitude, and microclimate, gives us grapes which reflect the particular vineyards they come from.

Our noble Barolos come from the prestigious areas of Bussia, Le Coste, and Mosconi in Monforte d’Alba and from Mariondino in Castiglione Falletto. The Bussia stands out for its elegance and finesse thanks the chalky, marly white soil; Le Coste and Mosconi are two plots in Monforte d’Alba of white marl and tuff stone soil and the Barolo from this area is the perfect union of vigor, structure and class. Mariondino has a marly sandstone structure which gives us a spicy and fascinating Barolo.

First of all, we are a family of farmers, and the respect of territory and nature is fundamental for us in order to build a perfect symbiosis with the earth. Besides the traditional techniques, we have developed the micro-zoning technique of soils based on the personalization of different plots, and the utilization of specific fertilizations, and pruning methods, depending on the kind of soil where the vineyard is located. Furthermore, we employ high quality humus and special microorganisms to give the soil the maximum quantity of nutritive elements and oxygen to make it rich, healthy and aerated.

Among the rows we keep the natural grass growing in order to develop a deep radical system helping the plants becoming healthy, resistant to disease and stable. The purpose of our work is to ensure the longest natural life cycle to the plant in order to obtain highest and most balanced grapes. Around the end of July and middle of August we perform green harvest to reach about 1 kilo per plant for Nebbiolo grapes, and 1,5 kilos for Dolcetto and Barbera grapes. The harvest is carefully done by hand. We wait for the right maturation of the grapes, and taste them in order to evaluate the right level of ripeness. This is essential to develop our wine making style in the cellar.