Franchino Mauro

Mauro Franchino is a winemaker from another era, a shy and secluded wine craftsman, uninterested in fashions, media spotlights and critical acclaim. His concern is to make good wine every year, cultivating vines and producing wine in Gattinara as has always been done in the area. This is why he has remained unknown to the general public, slowly imposing himself as a reference point for enthusiasts of the territory of northern Piedmont and for the most demanding wine lovers in search of strongly territorial expressions.

Winemaker Mauro Franchino cultivates small vineyard plots in the Borelle, Guardia and Lurghe subzones for a total of just 3 hectares under vine, all strictly cultivated with Nebbiolo. These are old vines rooted on morainic soil at an altitude of 450 metres, cared for with great care and farming wisdom. The small winery is located in the centre of Gattinara, inside an old building. It houses traditional concrete tanks, a labelling machine, a semi-manual bottling machine and, in two underground rooms, the old 25 hl oak barrels. Vinification procedures involve maceration on the skins for up to 20 days and long ageing in large casks. Today Mauro is supported in his work, which he has been doing since he was 14 years old, by his nephew Alberti Raviciotti, to whom he is passing on all his secrets.

The production is minimal and limited, capable of communicating without filters the most candid peculiarities of the territory. Mauro Franchino's wines are tasty, mineral and traditionalist; at times shy and introverted, they give their best after years of bottle ageing. They are born out of an approach of total loyalty and dedication to the terroir and are slowly indulged with depth and patience, far from the fiery exuberance of the international mould. Today they represent an exciting return to the past, to be undertaken and interpreted not in a nostalgic key but as a passionate rediscovery of the authentic flavours of tradition. Flavours that a few good winemakers strongly rooted in the land have never ceased to propose, with the same hard and stubborn toil of yesteryear.