Ca' de Noci Querciole 2023

Ca' de Noci is a small estate located in the hills south of Reggio Emilia in Emilia-Romagna, founded in its current form in 1993 when brothers Alberto and Giovanni Masini took direct management of their family's property. The name translates from local dialect as "house of walnuts," a reference to the walnut forest that has stood on the land for generations. Their father, Vittorio, a professor of agriculture, planted the first vines in 1970, selecting native varieties that were already rare at the time: Spergola, Malbo Gentile, and several local Lambrusco biotypes including Montericco, Grasparossa, and Sgavetta.

When Alberto, an architect, and Giovanni, an agronomist and enologist, took over the estate in 1993, they converted fully to certified organic farming and began vinifying their own grapes rather than selling the fruit. In 1993, the first bottle of sparkling Spergola was produced in the garage beneath the family house: the Riserva dei Fratelli, a méthode traditionnelle wine that remains their longest-aged cuvée. In 1998, they completed a dedicated winery and expanded the lineup to include Querciole and Sottobosco, both bottle-refermented sparkling wines. In 2003, the family added approximately 1.5 hectares of vineyard at higher elevation in Broletto, on calcareous Apennine soils, where Sgavetta and Malbo Gentile are planted.

The entire estate covers around 5 hectares. All farming is done without synthetic inputs, all fermentations are spontaneous, and no sulfur is added at any stage. Giovanni manages the technical side of viticulture and winemaking; Alberto oversees the architectural and organizational aspects of the estate. Production volumes are deliberately small. Ca' de Noci has become one of the most recognized estates in Italy's natural wine scene, not least because of the rarity of the varieties they work with.

Discover the full Ca' de Noci range at Primal Wine: Sottobosco Frizzante and Tre Dame Rosato. Browse our best-selling natural wines for more top picks from Italy and beyond.

Emilia-Romagna occupies a broad arc of northern Italy stretching from the Apennine foothills in the south to the Po River delta in the north, bordered by Lombardy and Veneto to the east and Tuscany and Liguria to the west. The region has two distinct viticulturally relevant zones: the flat, fertile Po Valley, where large-volume Lambrusco production has historically been concentrated, and the Apennine foothills, which run along the southern boundary of the region and include the areas around Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, and Bologna. Ca' de Noci sits in these foothills, roughly 25 kilometers south of Reggio Emilia, at the point where the plains begin to rise toward the mountains.

The soils around the Crostolo river valley vary from silty-clay on the gentler slopes near the river to more calcareous, rocky terrain higher up in the hills around Broletto. These hill soils are lean and well-drained, limiting vine vigor and concentrating flavor in ways that the alluvial plains below cannot replicate. Altitude plays a meaningful role as well: at 150 to 230 meters, temperatures are more moderate, nights are cooler, and the growing season is more extended, which preserves natural acidity in white varieties like Spergola.

Spergola is native to the province of Reggio Emilia. For most of the twentieth century it was confused with Sauvignon Blanc, and only genetic analysis confirmed it as a distinct variety. By the time Ca' de Noci began farming it seriously in the 1990s, Spergola had nearly disappeared from the region entirely, replaced by higher-yielding, more commercially standardized varieties. The Masini family's sustained focus on it has made Querciole one of the few Spergola-based wines available internationally.

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