Rocche Costamagna

On May 15, 1841 the police office of the royal Military Command in Alba granted Luigi Costamagna, son of the estate’s founder Francesco Antonio Costamagna, an official licence “to retail the wine produced from his own vineyards” in La Morra. In 1911, Francesco Costamagna and his son Riccardo were awarded a gold medal at the “Gran Premio dell’Esposizione Internazionale di Torino” for fifty years of winemaking.

When Francesco died, his son Riccardo, an attorney, continued to manage the winery with the help of his wife Maddalena. When he died in the 1930s, Riccardo’s wife decided to sell the vineyards located outside La Morra. Wine was produced only for the family’s own consumption and some grapes were sold to other winemakers.

In the late 1960s, Maddalena’s niece, Claudia Ferraresi, together with her husband Giorgio Locatelli, restarted the commercial winemaking activity, planted new vineyards and modernised the old winery.

Since the mid 1980s their son Alessandro Locatelli has been managing the winery with the help of agronomist Gian Piero Romana and enologist Giuseppe Caviola.

Alessandro has improved the vineyards and wine-making techniques, he has been developing customer sales all over the world, and so carrying on the family tradition with passion and drawing on the wealth of experience gathered by the family.

ROCCHE DELL'ANNUNZIAT - It is one of the four historic vineyards in La Morra, together with Brunate, Cerequio and La Serra, and certainly the best area in the hamlet of Annunziata. Rocche refers to the highest part of a hill. The parcel slopes down from 347 m a.s.l. to 320 m a.s.l. and most of it is devoted to the growing of Nebbiolo grapes. The vineyard has a south-west aspect and is blessed with ideal growing conditions for producing our Barolo Rocche dell’Annunziata and only in the best vintages, a small quantity of the cru Barolo Bricco Francesco. 0.7 hectares are used for Barbera grapes to produce the Barbera d’Alba Superiore Rocche delle Rocche.

All of the wines from Rocche dell’Annunziata have a unique complex bouquet.

Two vineyeards in the hamlet Annunziata and a number of recently acquired vineyards in Ridoasso (La Morra) are devoted to the production of the Barbera d’Alba Annunziata.

NASSONE E PISOTTA - These vineyards are located on the upper hills of La Morra and therefore are particularly suitable for early-ripening grapes such as Dolcetto and Arneis. At this altitude yields are low, grapes have great concentration and richness, and so ultimately wines are more complex. From a number of recently planted vineyards we produce Dolcetto d’Alba Murræ, while another five vineyards, more than 50 years old are devoted to Dolcetto d’Alba Rùbis. This wine displays the most intense bouquet of raspberry and blackberry aromas followed by an incomparable richenss and persistence of fruit flavours on the palate.

 

VERDUNO - A number of vineyards in Verduno are specially selected for the production of Langhe Nebbiolo Roccardo – a wine of great complexity. The soil in Verduno contributes to wines with fragrant spicy undertones. We are convinced that the greatest care in the vineyards is the most important activity in winemaking. In our young vineyards the density of plants is around 4500-5500 plants/hectare. Green harvesting (thinning out bunches) in mid July really makes the difference – the lower the yields, the more concentrated the grapes. Grapes from each vineyard are carefully selected and processed separately in order to keep and express in each wine the characteristics that are unique of a given vineyard and of a given terroir.

Methods to control diseases are based on the careful observation of weather and natural conditions: the spraying of chemical products is limited to the bare minimum.