Storia
Timorasso before La Colombera
Timorasso has been cultivated in the Tortona area since the Middle Ages and was recorded in a 14th-century agricultural encyclopaedia. It subsequently became an important white variety in Piemonte, but its cultivation declined progressively after the Second World War as growers favoured more vigorous and resistant grapes.
1937: the farm at Vho
La Colombera’s family story began in 1937, when Pietro and Maria, Elisa Semino’s great-grandparents, rented a farm in the hills of Vho. Its land was devoted to wheat, chickpeas and alfalfa. The holding functioned as a substantially self-sufficient mixed farm, with chickens, hens and turkeys, a calf and a cow, wheat for flour, eggs and milk. A few vineyard rows supplied wine for family consumption.
The post-war generation and the first vineyards
Renato survived the Second World War and married Giuliana. Their son Piercarlo was born in 1955. His birth was associated with the purchase of the family’s first tractor and the planting of vineyards, although cereals remained the dominant activity. During the years of Italy’s economic boom, the vineyard area continued to expand.
1980: estate vinification and bottling
By 1980 Piercarlo had decided to stop delivering the grapes elsewhere. He began vinifying the crop himself and bottling wine at the estate, moving La Colombera from grape growing toward an independent wine-producing identity.
The 1990s: recovery of Timorasso
During the 1990s Piercarlo and Elisa joined a small group of young Colli Tortonesi growers—described as the first five estates to support the project—in working to recover Timorasso. They identified La Colombera’s 20 hectares of vineyards as a suitable setting for the variety, with alternating sandstone and clay-marl strata, calcareous and tuffaceous patches, and an altitude considered capable of giving the wines marked mineral character, finesse and ageing potential.
Piercarlo and Elisa planted five different types of vineyard material using massal selection from Timorasso vines. Years of study and sensory analysis were used to build a broader ampelographic and aromatic profile and greater complexity. This work ultimately led to the selection of the Montino vineyard as a cru.
1998–2006: labels and milestones
La Colombera’s first label was created in 1998. The first Timorasso harvest followed in 2000. In 2006 the estate introduced Il Montino, its single-vineyard Timorasso cru.
Elisa subsequently shaped a range linked to La Colombera and the Colli Tortonesi DOC territory. The family’s naming customs became part of that identity: a wine is dedicated to each woman born into the family, while the birth of each boy is marked by buying a tractor. The range brought together Timorasso, Barbera, Cortese, Croatina and Nibiò, a local grape related to Dolcetto.
The family team
Elisa now runs La Colombera with Piercarlo and her brother Lorenzo. Piercarlo and Lorenzo oversee the agricultural and mechanical work. Lorenzo was formerly a snowboard athlete with the Italian national team; he left competitive sport and the mountains to join his sister in the family wine business.
Terroir
La Colombera lies in Vho, a few kilometres from Tortona, within a hilly landscape of vineyards, woods, slopes and villages. Moving away from the plain, the Colli Tortonesi landscape changes from rural hills to almost mountainous terrain. Streams divide it into six valleys, with narrow roads frequently following the ridgelines and hillsides.
The estate’s 20 hectares of vineyards include alternating strata of sandstone and clay marl, together with calcareous and tuffaceous patches. These soils and the altitude were central to Piercarlo and Elisa’s choice to focus on Timorasso and its capacity for mineral expression, finesse and development through bottle ageing.
Montino is a single vineyard at 250 metres above sea level. Its soils include light and dark clays; the vineyard’s technical description further identifies light, calcareous-marly clay. Elsewhere, the estate identifies dark clay soils for Barbera and Croatina, clay soils for Nibiò, and its oldest vineyard as a Barbera planting on clay.
Vinificazione
Vineyard work is organised around manual intervention and soil protection. Copper-based treatments and sulphur are the only vineyard protection products identified, and herbicides are excluded. Manual work is favoured throughout the vineyard cycle, from pruning to harvest.
The approach is framed around respect for the surrounding ecosystem, maximum sustainability and preservation of the soil. Beyond the vineyards, the family combines advanced agricultural techniques and technology with eight decades of farming experience; its chickpea, wheat and orchard programme is managed without synthetic products.
Cellar work is described as meticulous and closely integrated with the family’s management of the vineyards. Added sulphur dioxide is reserved for the stage immediately before bottling.
Stainless steel is an established vinification and maturation vessel at La Colombera. The estate’s Timorasso technical profiles identify both vinification and ageing in steel. Across the wider range, the cellar also uses wood: some red wines mature first in steel and subsequently in barrique, while other cuvées are presented either as steel-aged or wood-aged expressions. No broader technical parameters for fermentation, maceration, clarification, filtration or bottling are defined.
Filosofia
La Colombera presents itself as a family team and custodian of its agricultural territory. Its outlook joins dedication to the land and vines with control of the production chain and detailed cellar work.
The family treats the vineyard as an inherited patrimony. Manual labour, respect for the plant, protection of the soil and care for the surrounding ecosystem form the core of its agricultural position. The wider mixed-farming estate also reflects a desire to connect scientific and technological progress with 80 years of practical experience in the fields.
Timorasso is central to this philosophy. Piercarlo and Elisa’s work with massal selection, comparative plantings, research and sensory analysis was intended to recover a local variety and build a more complete ampelographic and aromatic expression. The estate values Timorasso not only in youth but for the mineral, resinous and hydrocarbon character, balance, intensity and finesse that emerge with bottle age.
Family identity is also expressed through the range: wines are named for women born into the family, while the birth of each boy is traditionally marked by the purchase of a tractor.