A fire of vine clippings at sunset, with the hills of Dogliani behind

San Fereolo

vignaioli in Dogliani

Who I am

Nicoletta Bocca

My name is Nicoletta Bocca. I began this trade in the early nineties, trying to learn everything I could from my neighbours. I came from Milan and knew nothing about the countryside, but my father always loved drinking well, and every year he took us all to the Langa – a land that kept the memory of his partisan past – to make us understand how things stood. Memorable lunches and drinking sessions, the ritual purchases of tume cheeses, truffles and wines, getting to know the producers.

I came to wine first as a drinker, and I have never forgotten it, so the qualities a loyal customer may look for in a wine have stayed with me: durability, how it holds up once the bottle is open, consistency and elegance, truth. Over time, as I learned the trade, I tried to carve out an interpretive space of my own, to find a match between my own character and what I was doing, to give substance and meaning to the phrase ‘wines with personality’. I hope I have found the right path.

Dogliani · 1992

Dogliani

How can I define San Fereolo if not as a puzzle, made of wines coming from many different parcels of land sprinkled throughout the Dogliani territory. I acquired my vineyards a little at a time starting 1992, the birth year of this estate. Often these plots of land belonged to people that were too old to continue farming, and in any case each plot was chosen for the strength of character that it would impart to the wines, and for the history of those who had worked the land before me and had left their memory in that place like the roots of the vine leave them in the soil.

With patience I gathered the parcels, scattered on the right bank of the river Rea, between Dogliani and Monforte d’Alba, and now it has become a winery of 12 hectares, capable of producing about 45,000 bottles a year. We are in the southern part of Piedmont, adjacent to the Barolo wine country in the Langhe, but our territory has remained more wild, still scattered with woods, hazelnuts and fields. A variegated landscape, dominated by the circle of the Alps and its fresh breezes that make it an ideal location for such a demanding grapevine like Dolcetto.

Ripe Dolcetto grapes among the vine leaves

Biodynamic

Vineyard

At San Fereolo the work in the vineyard comes first. Growing vines is a trade that demands a deep moral commitment. There is no room for lies, and every mistake has consequences that must inevitably be faced, so one has to be full of attention, love and honesty. It is also work that makes you understand what nature is, how much we depend on her and how far we can guide her without being arrogant. A little experience and observation are enough to understand that if you do not listen to her and respect her, you are rowing against yourself.

Every plant, every vineyard, is like an individual that expresses itself within a chorus, in a network of relationships with the plants around it, with the place where they stand and even with the space in which the earth is set. I looked for a kind of farming attentive to observing these relationships, these continual metamorphoses, one close to the observational skill of the elders. The biodynamic approach was inevitably the one that answered best.

The range

The wines

We work with the traditional grapes of Piedmont: Dolcetto, Barbera and Nebbiolo with the addition of a white wine made from “foreign” grapes, Rhine Riesling and Gewürztraminer. The grapes undergo their metamorphoses with slow vinifications, which are never forced. The wines tend to express strength but not arrogance. They seek to combine the terrestrial and incarnate aspects embodied in the grape skins and in the earth with those of pure vertical force present in the aromas of the primary fruit.

These wines also reflect the character of the person who helped them to be born, for better or for worse. They are not made to be complacent; they are not looking for compliments or non-critical approval. At first they are closed within themselves, somewhat solitary, but once they feel at ease they reveal all their loyalty and their potential to last and improve over time. They are faithful companions, reflecting an impression of old Piedmont as a land of treasures hidden by modesty, self restraint and obstinacy.