In a Piedmont village of about a hundred people, Andrea Scovero works the same steep slopes his grandfather taught him to farm, choosing low yields and quality over profit with stubborn consistency.
Backstory
Scovero is the fourth generation to tend his family's vines, having learned the craft from his grandfather. When he took over the estate more than 20 years ago, he converted it to natural-wine production, keeping the classical methods he was taught while gradually adding his own experiments.
The Region
The estate is in the tiny hamlet of Bionzo, near Costigliole d'Asti in the Asti hills of Piedmont, northwest Italy. This is Barbera heartland, a landscape of steep clay-and-limestone slopes where the grape reaches its most expressive form.
The estate is in the hamlet of Bionzo, in the commune of Costigliole d'Asti, where Scovero is one of only a handful of growers in a village of roughly a hundred people.
Vineyards & Farming
Scovero farms around six hectares on very steep slopes facing south and southeast. The vineyards are worked organically and biodynamically, and everything is harvested by hand. He is also slowly reshaping the plantings, grafting over to local grapes such as Freisa. Production is deliberately modest, reflecting a preference for quality over volume that he describes as more important than profit.
Winemaking
In the cellar Scovero works with no fining, no filtration, and no added sulfites. He keeps one foot in tradition, vinifying as his grandfather did, while continuously experimenting, including aging some wines in amphora, to see where his grapes can go. Beyond still wine he also makes grappa and a Barbera-based chinato vermouth, in the old Piedmontese farmhouse tradition.
The Wines
Barbera leads the range, most famously the Ciapin bottling and a site-specific Barbera d'Asti from the Vigna Nord-Est. The Nebbiolo appears under the name Il Clown, and there is Dolcetto, a small parcel of Sauvignon Blanc, and a Barbera-based rosato. The wines show intense, pure fruit and a clear mineral streak, honest and energetic, unmistakably the work of a careful artisan.