Storia
From Bastia Mondovì to Dogliani
The Chionetti family’s connection with viticulture reaches back to the 19th century. Its earliest activity was based in Bastia Mondovì, where the family cultivated and sold grapes, particularly Dolcetto. A branch of the family moved to Dogliani in the early 20th century.
Dogliani itself has a much older wine-growing record. Viticulture and winemaking in the area developed under Etruscan and Roman influence and occupied a central place in the medieval economy. The municipal archive preserves the 1593 Ordini per le vindimie, regulations governing the harvest of the locally dominant dozzetti, an early name for Dolcetto. Among the rules was a prohibition on harvesting before the feast of San Matteo on 21 September; an early harvest could be punished by confiscation of the crop.
1912: the estate takes shape in San Luigi
In 1912, Giuseppe Chionetti completed the purchase of a farmhouse and the first family vineyards in San Luigi, an area of Dogliani particularly suited to vines. Giuseppe and his son Andrea moved beyond grape growing and selling by deciding to vinify and market their own wine. This purchase is treated as the foundation of the winery and established the enduring association between Chionetti, Dogliani and Dolcetto.
The family also cultivated Nebbiolo in San Luigi in the early 20th century. It was planted in some of the valley’s lower, fully south-facing sites, where Dolcetto did not ripen as successfully.
The first estate bottlings and named vineyards
By the middle of the 20th century—and specifically during the 1950s—the Chionettis were among the first three families in Dogliani to bottle their own Dolcetto. Quinto Chionetti and his son Andrea subsequently became the first to place individual vineyard names on Dogliani Dolcetto labels. Their approach translated the local understanding of differences among the best vine-growing soils into named wines and helped establish the area’s first conception of individual cru.
Quinto planted the small, high La Costa vineyard near the summit of the Briccolero hill in the late 1950s. It remains the estate’s oldest vineyard. During the 1960s he identified a clear distinction within the San Luigi hill: its southwestern side produced more immediately approachable wines, while the southeastern side delivered greater structure and minerality.
In 1978, following a detailed study of the family vineyards, Andrea Chionetti selected the La Costa plot for a new single-vineyard Dogliani. The site lies at approximately 500 metres and represents the highest planted vineyard within the family’s San Luigi property.
Andrea’s Barolo project
During the 1980s, Andrea planned to cultivate a small vineyard in Monforte d’Alba and produce a limited quantity of Barolo. The project remained unrealized during his lifetime. In 1988, Andrea and his firstborn daughter, Elena, died in a road accident.
Quinto, together with his wife Gemma, returned to the leadership of the winery and guided it into the 1990s. He took Marco Devalle under his wing when Marco was 16, teaching him winemaking and vineyard care. Marco subsequently remained with the company. An enduring collaboration also began with Piedmontese oenologist Giuseppe Caviola, who undertook some of his early consultancy work at Chionetti and became a family friend.
Modernization and the fifth generation
In 1999, Quinto’s daughter-in-law Maria left her banking career to join the estate. She played a decisive role in its modernization and international development, preparing the ground for later investment in Barolo vineyards.
In 2013, Quinto entrusted the leadership of the company to his grandson Nicola, who continued the family’s Dogliani tradition. Beginning in 2015, Nicola and Maria acquired three vineyards in the Barolo area and vinified their grapes separately, producing three distinct Barolo expressions. Their work fulfilled the project conceived by Andrea decades earlier. The first acquisition was Vigna Pianpolvere in Bussia, Monforte d’Alba, in 2015.
The expansion retained a parcel-focused approach. Pianpolvere, Parussi in Castiglione Falletto and Roncaglie in La Morra represent three communes and three different terroirs. Alongside Dolcetto and Barolo, the family developed estate expressions of Barbera and Langhe Nebbiolo. In 2019, it introduced Rhine Riesling from the high Martina site in Dogliani, at the edge of Alta Langa.
Today, the fifth generation continues the family’s work, maintaining the emphasis on individually identified vineyards, organic cultivation and wines shaped by site and vintage.
Terroir
Dogliani and the San Luigi valley
Chionetti’s historic vineyards lie in Dogliani in the southwestern Langhe of Piedmont. The hills are higher and closer to the Maritime Alps than other parts of the Langhe, producing cooler conditions. The Dolcetto vineyards extend through the San Luigi hamlet beside the winery.
The two principal sides of the San Luigi hill differ in slope, soil and expression. The gentler western side has accumulated deeper, more evolved soil. Its surface is reddish, tenacious, fertile and particularly rich in clay. The steep eastern and southeastern side, including Briccolero and Vigna La Costa, has paler, calcareous soils composed of clay, silt and a substantial sandy fraction. Wind and erosion on the steep incline continually renew the surface soil; calcium carbonate is high and the pH is alkaline. The summit reaches approximately 500 metres.
Lower, sheltered parts of San Luigi face south and southwest and have lighter-colored soils. The family historically used these sites for Nebbiolo where Dolcetto ripened less successfully.
Monforte d’Alba
Vigna Pianpolvere occupies a ridge in Bussia at approximately 400 metres and descends toward the southwest. Its position has preserved the characteristics of the underlying mother rock. The pale soil contains clay together with substantial sand and gravel and derives from the Sant’Agata Fossil Marls.
San Sebastiano lies on a windy hilltop near the chapel of the same name, on the first territory encountered in Monforte d’Alba after the San Luigi valley. The vineyard extends around the crest of the ridge toward Monchiero. Its elevated position provides strong drainage, rapid drying after moisture and relatively early ripening. The soils derive from the Sandy Sant’Agata Fossil Marls and have evolved into deeper, darker material on some slopes.
Castiglione Falletto and La Morra
Parussi lies in Castiglione Falletto at approximately 220 metres with a southwest exposure. Its marly, calcareous soils belong to the Typical Sant’Agata Fossil Marls. The soft rock includes sandy material as well as plant remains, shells and fragments of mollusks.
Roncaglie occupies the central part of an east- to southeast-facing ridge in La Morra at approximately 300 metres. Its geology belongs to the Laminated Sant’Agata Fossil Marls, dating to the Tortonian–Messinian transition.
Martina and the edge of Alta Langa
The Rhine Riesling vineyard stands in the Martina hamlet of Dogliani, at the edge of Alta Langa, reaching approximately 600 metres. It occupies the southern slope of a hill where whitish marls alternate with compact sandstone known locally as pietra di Langa. The geology marks the junction between the Lequio Formation, associated with Serralunga d’Alba, and the Murazzano Formation. The soils are poor and shallow and are susceptible to summer drought.
Vinificazione
Chionetti farms according to organic principles and has attained organic certification. The progression toward certification began with the elimination of herbicides and reflects a long-term focus on grape quality and vineyard health.
Vines are trained and pruned using the Guyot system. Most vineyard operations are performed manually. Crop thinning begins at the onset of ripening, followed by careful grape selection during harvest.
Site-specific planting decisions respond to the physical needs of each variety. Barbera occupies the well-drained, windy summit of San Sebastiano to limit excessive swelling in its compact bunches and encourage rapid drying. Nebbiolo has historically occupied lower, sheltered, south-facing ground in San Luigi where Dolcetto was less successful. Rhine Riesling is cultivated at approximately 600 metres in Martina on poor, shallow soils at risk of summer drought.
The cellar works with multiple types of tanks and barrels. Its production approach combines developments in oenology and agronomy with respect for established family practice. Vineyard identity remains the organizing principle: grapes from individual sites and Barolo crus are kept as distinct expressions rather than being merged into a single territorial blend.
Filosofia
Chionetti defines its role as that of a custodian: of the land, of a family interpretation of wine and of a tradition extending over more than a century. Its central aim is for each wine to express the vineyard from which it comes, the specific soil and the climatic conditions of its vintage. Vintage variation is therefore accepted, while terroir and elegance provide continuity of identity.
Naming individual vineyards and cru on the labels is fundamental to this interpretation. Dogliani DOCG remains the core expression of the family’s identity, while the move into three separately vinified Barolo sites extends the same parcel-based approach to another part of the Langhe.
The family describes tradition as dynamic rather than fixed: it is reconsidered each year in relation to what the land provides. Advances in agronomy and oenology are embraced where they support quality, but they are balanced by respect for inherited practices and the character of the territory.
Organic farming, the rejection of herbicides and attention to grape health form the environmental dimension of this philosophy. Caring for the land in the present is understood as an investment in the future quality of both the vineyards and the wines.