Bricco Asili Winery

Origins of the family business

The Ceretto family story begins with Emilia and Riccardo Ceretto in Valdivilla, a hamlet of Santo Stefano Belbo. In the second half of the 1930s, Riccardo established Casa Vinicola Ceretto in Alba. He owned no vineyards and made wine from purchased grapes.

Bruno Ceretto finished school in 1957 and joined his father, initially taking responsibility for wine sales. Marcello Ceretto entered the business in 1961. The two brothers brought a new emphasis on the origin of the grapes and the character of individual vineyards. Riccardo was reluctant to invest in land at a time when rural life in the Langhe was still associated with poverty, but Bruno and Marcello looked to Burgundy and its vineyard-specific model. During the 1960s they began identifying the best sites in Barolo and Barbaresco and acquiring vineyards.

The first estate vineyard and winery

In 1970 the family acquired a parcel at the summit of the Asili hill in Barbaresco. It was Ceretto's first estate-owned vineyard and the first component of the vineyard holdings that Bruno and Marcello intended to assemble. Construction of a winery on the same hill began with the purchase; the broader family chronology places the acquisition and construction process between 1969 and 1973.

Completed in 1973, Bricco Asili was the first winery conceived and built by Bruno and Marcello Ceretto. It was created specifically for vinification and maturation at the place where the grapes originated, following the estate-based model of a French château. Asili was first produced separately in 1974, and grapes from this vineyard have been vinified on their own since the first half of the 1970s.

Expansion beyond Asili

Bernadot, in the upper part of Treiso, expanded the winery's representation of the Barbaresco area. Its first production year is recorded as 1997. Roberta Ceretto joined the family business in 2000, the same year in which the family released its first Bernadot vintage. The investment was considered a risk because the vineyard rises beyond 400 metres, a potentially challenging elevation for Nebbiolo, but the early vintages confirmed the family's confidence in the site.

Gallina in Neive was acquired much later. Its 0.31-hectare holding—approximately 3,000 square metres—was first vinified in 2018 and released from that initial production. Adding Gallina completed a three-commune account of Barbaresco through Asili in Barbaresco, Bernadot in Treiso and Gallina in Neive.

Organic transition and present role

All Ceretto vineyards entered conversion to organic agriculture in 2010. Beginning with the 2015 vintage, all products obtained organic certification. The transition changed vineyard management in pursuit of greater respect for the soil, grapes and people working among the vines.

Bricco Asili now receives and processes grapes from the three named climats—Asili, Bernadot and Gallina—and remains dedicated to their vinification and maturation.

Bricco Asili Winery is situated in Barbaresco at the place of origin of its first estate-grown grapes. Its three vineyards form a cross-section of the Barbaresco denomination through three communes: Asili in Barbaresco, Bernadot in Treiso and Gallina in Neive.

Asili

Asili occupies the hill associated with the commune of Barbaresco. The planted slope descends from about 290 metres at its uppermost point to about 200 metres on the valley floor. The soils contain Marne di Sant'Agata Fossili, and the broader vineyard faces south to south-west. Ceretto's small summit parcel has several aspects, restrained productivity and sufficient individual character to be treated as an almost autonomous growing environment.

Bernadot

Bernadot lies high in Treiso, below the settlement and toward the hamlet of Pertinace. It virtually continues the band of Nervo vineyards and shares their orientation and the terrain associated with the Lequio formation. The vines occupy a small natural amphitheatre. This landform creates a favourable microclimate that moderates the effects of the vineyard's considerable elevation, reaching approximately 400 metres at the highest point and exceeding 400 metres in the elevated sector described by the family.

Gallina

Gallina rests below the village of Neive, with the settlement above it and the village cemetery opposite. Its marly-calcareous soils contain a substantial proportion of light-coloured sand. The earth is richer in organic matter than the other Barbaresco parcels farmed for Bricco Asili, requiring a distinct approach to soil and cover-crop management.

All Ceretto vineyards began conversion to organic agriculture in 2010, and every product obtained organic certification from the 2015 vintage. The change was intended to increase respect for the soil, grapes and vineyard workers.

Vineyard management draws on Steiner's philosophy and seeks an equilibrium modelled on natural systems. A mountain meadow—diverse in plant species and resistant to erosion during storms—is used as the conceptual model for maintaining biodiversity within a cultivated vineyard. Over a period described as the preceding twenty years, insecticides and fertilizers were eliminated. Soil nutrition instead relies on cover cropping and green manure: selected species are sown between vine rows and incorporated as a natural source of fertility.

Practices are adjusted to the conditions of each vineyard. At Gallina, comparatively rich soil required new green-manure species and a dedicated strategy for managing organic matter. The parcel became an example of observation-led farming: a technique is not imposed simply because it succeeded in another vineyard.

The long life cycle of both vines and age-worthy wines shapes experimentation. A vineyard trial may not become evident in bottle until seven and a half years after harvest, and the team allows at least fifteen years to consolidate and interpret experimental results. Earlier material also identifies the 4.8-hectare Bernadot holding as biodynamically farmed.

Bricco Asili was designed as a place for both vinification and maturation, built directly amid the source vineyards in the manner of a French château. It now processes the Nebbiolo from Asili, Bernadot and Gallina.

The production philosophy developed by Alessandro Ceretto is described as working by subtraction. Beginning in 2008, the crus—or bricchi, the family's local term for hilltop vineyards—were fermented without selected yeasts. A pied de cuve was progressively adopted to initiate fermentation. Under this method, alcoholic fermentation and skin maceration run for the same period, approximately 20 days. Carbon dioxide naturally released during fermentation protects the must.

Use of new wood has been progressively reduced over the preceding two decades. The purpose is to avoid masking each wine's own aromas with the scents and tannins contributed by unused barrels. These choices form part of a wider effort to avoid standardized cellar recipes and allow the identity of each vineyard to direct the finished wine.

The central objective is to express terroir as the interaction of soil, climate, vineyard position and the people who cultivate the vines. A healthy vine is understood to depend on healthy soil and on everything the plant absorbs and breathes.

The approach is neither a fixed recipe nor simply a return to tradition. The family rejects allowing passing oenological fashions—whether new barriques, concentration or sweetness—to determine production choices, arguing that such trends can dilute identity in pursuit of the market. Its preferred role is to accompany the wine rather than pull it toward a predetermined result, creating the conditions in which each site can express its own character.

Respect for the ecosystem, biodiversity and long-term vine health guides farming decisions. The same principle governs reduced intervention in the cellar: spontaneous cru fermentations, pied de cuve and declining use of new oak are intended to remove elements that could standardize or cover the vineyard's expression.

The family also emphasizes patience. Because the consequences of a vineyard experiment may take years to become visible in bottle, decisions are evaluated over periods that may extend to fifteen years. This long horizon reflects the principle that a vine can outlive the person tending it.

Current family governance is described as collective: members share a common vision, make decisions together and give responsibility and resources to those with relevant expertise. The broader ambition is to demonstrate that environmental respect remains possible even across substantial vineyard holdings.