INTO THE CELLAR

ELEVÉ

[to Raise / to Transcend]

Sensing the infinite, turn it perceptible

THE ART OF WINE

Wine production in Langa: is a ceremony. In various cultures wine has revealed its spiritual and symbolic meanings. From Christian eucharistia to roman Bacchic parties. This ritual has made the wine being conceptualized with the most sublime purpose, and as a consequence managed with extreme obeisance.

The timing of the harvest, the most magical moment, the summary of a year of efforts and sweats. Supported by technology, still today the privileged instrument is the sense of taste. Every small plot is carefully monitored and harvested with the right timing, with the objective of giving elegance, balance and purity.

Destemming has evolved, we select grape by grape on a tapis-roulant, the grapes are gently pressed and destemmed. They will then enter a big stainless-steel tank, where they will undergo fermentation.

First, we will pump over, then once the cap has formed, we will emerge it using the method of used wooden planks of submerged cap (cappello sommerso) an infusion that lasts for days. After a month, a slow extraction will provide to the wine what in the nine months before the plant has lived and transmitted to its creature: the grape. In this slow process the soul of the hill, where the grapes have grown up, it is crystallized, from this it has taken its identity. Every tank has a different personality, everyone has its own expression.

This moment finished, this maieutical process has not ended yet. The elevation is taking place.
Slow the creature grows, shaping his character. Like the role of the farmer before, here one has to behave like the wise parent, understanding the character, let it be expressed, showing, never forcing the best direction.
Resting in Slavonian wood barrels (Garbellotto) and Austrian (Stockinger and Schon), not toasted, this neutral casing allows a slow breathing, delicate, and pure. Where in the Barbaresco corresponds to 24 up to 36 months in the Riserva. The oenologue in Langa is a wise master, impartial and patient. He understands the character of his wine and with his patience he observes its evolution. Sometimes it can be disattended but will not react, knowing that in time this rude character will slow down and the shy one will raise instead.

When exuberance is placated, it is time for bottling, following seasons, moons and winds. It will follow a bottle fining, that will prepare the newborn to a long sleep that will last decades. And whenever it will be woken up, it will be ready to reveal itself, has his father thought in the long endless hours spent into the vineyards taking care of him.
Every year these events will intersect and will again take place, and while taking place they will differ, here the farmer masters the eternal recurrence perfecting his art.

In the art of wine, in Langa, there are no rules or protocols.
Sensation leads.
Intuition is what lace experience, technique and touch.
The grower performs a “prophetic” act, he spreads/allows the world all the shades of his terroir. It is a transcendent act, he made, through the wine, eternal and sensible an ensemble otherwise ephemeral and decaying. Luca Pasquero Elia