Cascina Ebreo

The Cascina Ebreo winery was created by Peter Weimar, a Swiss computer scientist and farmer's son. Together with his wife Romy Gygax, he decided to start from scratch by buying an abandoned farmhouse in the town of Novello, not far from Barolo. His approach to the cultivation of red and white grapes is totally innovative and, at the time, seemed almost crazy. The wines he produces have become sensational collectors' items, with a character strongly linked to the territory, as intended by the owner. For certain wines, ideas and philosophies, it is difficult to find words, and therefore it is better to hear the story directly from the protagonists themselves.

"I came to the Langhe as a customer, to buy wine, and I immediately loved the area. I had always wanted to change my life and in 1988-89 we decided to do so. There were two options: we could have either opened a restaurant or produced wine. In 1992 we discovered Cascina Ebreo, in ruins, and we were forced to uproot vineyards that could not be saved, which had been thrown into the ground and left untended for dozens of years. Entire Nebbiolo vineyards, 25-30 years old, it would make you cry. Even the house was a barn before, and above it was the hayloft. It was a great adventure, full of surprises, as we started from nothing."

"Cascina Ebreo initially had a cellar with barrels and cages, and was so overcrowded that you didn't even have room to move around inside. When I started production, I did everything they told me: clarification, filtration and all the other operations required. When it came time to tasting, everyone liked it, besides me. Since 1997 I have changed everything and started making the wines as they really are, the result of the vineyards alone. They told me I was naive at the time. They told me I had missed the boat, because no one made wine like that anymore. Instead, everyone now makes 'artisanal wines', which is a term I hate. I prefer the term 'unplugged' because, like an acoustic guitar, you only hear the vineyard. The tradition of producing wine is to work with the vines in order to feel the area. Otherwise there is no point, as it could come from anywhere in the world. In the Barolo area everything is perfect and explaining the reason for this is impossible. There is the soil, there is the microclimate, but we have not understood what it is that makes the wine so great. My idea was to never make Barolo, I didn't care about denominations, as the way I see it they are not needed. I want a wine that is honest with itself. The metaphor I use is the one for music: we have moved from the vinyl record, containing the original recorded song, which is a bit dirty, not perfect in its entirety, to the digital CD, which has a part of that information, and finally to the MP3, which is completely clean. It is the same with wine, although it lives in its own imperfections, which characterise it, and it cannot be completely cleaned and standardised. Sometimes the courage to do what you have in your head without considering marketing and people is lacking. What else needs to be said? We are craftsmen, we are farmers" - Peter Weimar