Luigi Baudana

Family origins

Baudana’s origins recede beyond a documented founding date. The name belongs simultaneously to the family, a vineyard and the hamlet of Serralunga d’Alba in which the winery is rooted. The Baudana family has cared for land in this homonymous locality for generations.

Luigi Baudana and his wife Fiorina cultivated their inherited vineyards for more than thirty years. The cellar developed beneath the vaults of their home, on an intimate scale that gave the operation its identity as a Langhe garagiste. Luigi turned this confined working space into the center of the family’s viticulture and winemaking.

The mid-1990s and the first bottled wines

Luigi and Fiorina initially made wine for their own use. In the mid-1990s they also created the white wine later known as Dragon, originally blending Chardonnay and Sauvignon. Its composition gradually became more layered through the addition of Nascetta and a small component of Rhine Riesling.

The 1996 vintage was their first Barolo released in bottle, bringing the work of the family vineyards into a formally bottled expression.

The 2008 hailstorm

A severe hailstorm struck Serralunga in the summer of 2008. Within two days, Luigi and Fiorina had inspected and cleaned every affected cluster, removing damaged berries so that they would not compromise the remaining fruit. Their vineyards consequently showed no visible signs of the storm’s damage.

Transfer of stewardship in 2009

In January 2009, Luigi and Fiorina entrusted their generational legacy to the Vaira family. Giuseppe, Francesca and Isidoro Vaira entered the project as custodians, seeking to preserve the identity of the small cellar and its expression of an older Langhe. Vinification continued in the existing place rather than abandoning the cellar’s intimate character.

The transition also marked the adoption of the Vajra organic protocol in Baudana’s vineyards. The work subsequently expanded to include continuing research into the biodiversity of flora and fauna in the vineyards, adjoining fields and forests. The operation is certified organic and sustainable.

The Vaira family’s stated purpose is to perpetuate Luigi and Fiorina’s gestures, honor their ambition and pride, and seek the authentic voice of each vineyard.

Luigi and Fiorina established a culture of extremely close attention to individual clusters. After the severe Serralunga hailstorm of summer 2008, they went through the vineyards within two days and removed every damaged berry so that compromised fruit would not affect the rest of each bunch.

Since 2009, the vineyards have been cultivated under the Vajra organic protocol. Vineyard and landscape work includes continuing research to monitor and improve both plant and animal biodiversity, extending beyond the vines into the operation’s fields and forests. Baudana is certified organic and sustainable.

Nebbiolo in Serralunga generally reaches ripeness a few days before Nebbiolo in Barolo. The white varieties used for Dragon—Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Nascetta and Rhine Riesling—are interplanted as a field blend and are harvested together.

The winery retains the intimate scale of a Langhe garagiste: its cellar was established beneath the vaults of Luigi and Fiorina’s home, and production continued there after the Vaira family accepted stewardship in 2009.

Nebbiolo vinification

The current Barolo methods favor long, gentle extraction. The Baudana cru undergoes delicate fermentation in open-top tini, followed by submerged-cap maceration; the 2021 maceration lasted 54 days. Cerretta ferments more slowly than Baudana and is worked in truncated-conical vats. Its submerged-cap maceration likewise lasted 54 days in 2021, with gentle but frequent punch-downs and pump-overs as the only cap-management operations.

For the Barolo del Comune di Serralunga d’Alba, vinification takes place in vertical tini. Gentle punch-downs and rinsing of the cap accompany an average maceration of 45 days, partly under a submerged cap. Malolactic fermentation occurs spontaneously in the following spring; for Cerretta, it takes place in stainless steel.

The 2021 single-vineyard Barolos matured for 23 months in custom-made Slavonian oak casks of 15, 17 and 25 hl. The 2021 Serralunga d’Alba village Barolo aged for 26 months, principally in Slavonian casks of the same three capacities with a small number of neutral barrels.

White field blend

Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Nascetta and Rhine Riesling are planted together, picked together and co-vinified. Whole clusters are gently pressed with minimal skin contact. Fermentation proceeds slowly at low temperature, and malolactic fermentation is avoided. The wine matures on fine lees through winter with minimal bâtonnage before bottling.