Ca’ di Press Barolo ‘Perno’ 2021

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

Selected from the oldest vines, natural fermentation with 30 days on skins in stainless, then aged 20 months in 25-30hL Slavonian casks. Bottled unfined and unfiltered and aged for one year. 7000 bottles.

They may be one of the newest estates in Piedmont to release wine under their own name, it is their long history in the vineyard & intimate connection with the vine that has allowed them to express the soul of this special patch of dirt, Perno in Monforte d’Alba, Barolo!

“Ca’ di Press is one of the most exciting new estates I have seen in Piedmont in some time.”

Antonio Galloni

About Ca’ di Press

The story of Cà di Press was born in the early 1900s, driven by a love for nature and an authentic connection with one’s own land.

There were times when wine was made for family, friends and few customers, who often became part of the family itself.
The name, from the Piemontese “Casa dei Pressenda”, captures the whole essence of this reality: a peasant tradition where wine is passion, but first of all home.
After years dedicated to the sale of grapes and mulled wine, the first Cà di Press label arrives in 2018: 4,000 bottles of Barolo, the dream finally in a bottle.

“When the borders finally opened up and we made our first post Covid trip to Piedmont in January 2023, I was amazed at the sheer number of new producers that had popped up since my last visit. It was clear that a new generation was making waves: taking over from their parents, renovating old cellars, leasing vineyard and concluding contracts with long term grape buyers in order to begin making their own wine. The covid years had certainly been productive in Piedmont, with more new labels appearing in a short period than I’d seen in the previous twenty.

Talking to our winemaker friends, I kept hearing one name: Ca’ di Press. This repeated endorsement was good enough for me and, after a few phone calls, I had an appointment the very next day to meet Alice Pressenda, one half of the dynamic young sister duo at the helm of this remarkable estate.

Ca’ di Press – Press is short for Pressenda – is located at the northern tip of the Perno MGA in Monforte although, geographically, they are closer to Castiglione Falletto. Their first vintage was 2018 with just a single botti of Barolo produced.

It was a freezing winters day and the appointment took considerably longer than expected, not least because we had to warm the winesin our glasses. Nestled below her uncle’s house, the compact winery had the feel of an old garage and despite the fact that you could count the tanks and botti on two hands, it was already tight for space. Plans were being drawn up for extending the cellar and creating separate areas for fermentation and aging.

Alice is an impressive young woman. She talks with enthusiasm, never more so than when she’s discussing being out in the vineyards, instantly reminding me of another great winemaker across the valley in Chiara Boschis. Alice’s light hand in the cellar guides the wines towards purity and finesse.

They are beautifully perfumed with silky tannins and, impressively, it was this distinctive thread that than ran through samples of 2019, 2020 and 2021.

As we were finishing our tasting, Alice’s uncle shuffled down the stairs and asked his niece to fill his large plastic bottle with Dolcetto. There were only two tanks of it and I’m sure one of them was reserved for him. It’s true, the old timers really do prefer to drink Dolcetto – like its water! I was absolutely hooked, and left hoping for a small allocation. It is now two years later and the first wines from Ca’ di Press are about to arrive.”

Matt Paul

In the Vineyard

PERNO

If you drive north from Monforte and take the slip road up towards Castelletto, the road veers off to the small village of Perno. It’s more a collection of houses than a village, and most traffic will be en route to dine at Repubblica di Perno.

Perno the MGA is an interesting and varied area and the third largest in the Barolo region after Bricco San Pietro and Bussia (both also in Monforte). For whatever reason, the decision makers in Monforte did a lousy job of defining their vineyards, resulting in a small number of supersized MGA’s.

The two main areas of Perno are split down the middle between Santo Stefano di Perno on the western side and Disa, facing Serralunga, on the eastern side. At almost the northern tip of Perno, before you head into the valley along the small road that leads to Fontanafredda, is Ca’ di Press. From the new winery, you look into cantina Roagna and up to the torre of Castiglione Falletto and the terrace of one of my favourite restaurants in the world, La Terrazza di Renza.

The Pressenda family have been growing grapes in Perno for well over a century, most recently under the care of Alice and Cristina’s father Bruno, with the majority of their fruit previously sold to Fontanafredda. There are seven hectares in total, five of which are planted to Nebbiolo.

The soils here have more in common with those of Serralunga (Serravallian) than is typical in the main part of Perno, with marine sedimentary origins, calcareous clay marl and alternating layers of sand and sandstone.

Their vineyards have only ever been worked organically.

The road effectively divides the vineyards into two. Dolcetto, Barbera and new plantings of Nebbiolo are on the ‘Castiglione’ side, whilst the oldest Nebbiolo vines, predominantly planted in the 1960’s, on the ‘Serralunga’ side.

In the Winery

We vinify our vines individually, recognizing them for different exposures, age of the vines and different maturation time that each of them features. We believe that by doing so they can fully express their qualities. We aim to produce a sincere wine, and it is precisely for this reason that every vintage is different from the others, because even the slightest nuances tell the story of the year in which it was made and become the peculiarity of each production. We seek purity in our wines, intervening only when necessary. We do not clarify or filter anything, our wines are stabilized in a natural way using tanks positioned outside our cellar during the coldest period of winter.

Ca’ di Press

Barolo Perno

Destemming and not pressing of the clusters, followed by fermentation with maceration in contact with the skins for about 25-30 days in stainless steel tanks. Natural fermentation without the addition of yeasts. The wine is stabilized using tanks placed outside the cellar during the coldest period of winer. It is not clarified or filters. It will remain in stainless steel tanks for about 8 months, then continue to rest in large barrels (25-30HL) of Slavonian oak for 20 months, and finally, it will age in bottle for about a year.

Langhe Nebbiolo

Destemming and not pressing of the clusters, followed by fermentation with maceration in contact with the skins for about 25 days in stainless steel tanks. Natural fermentation without the addition of yeasts. The wine is stabilized using tanks placed outside the cellar during the coldest period of the winter. It is not clarified or filtered. It will remain in stainless steel tanks for 8 months and finally age in the bottle for about 9 months.

Dolcetto

Grape pressing set aside in favor of destemming, followed by a week of natural, with no added yeast fermentation and maceration of the skins in steel tanks. The wine is then naturally stabilized in tanks positioned outside the cellar during the coldest period of winter. It is not clarified nor filtered. The wine is then aged for 6 months in stainless steel tanks, followed by around 2 months of bottle aging.

Where in the World is Ca’ di Press?

Ca’ di Press is located in the Commune of Monforte d’Alba, Barolo, Piedmont, Italy.

This 3D flyover is Epic covering each of the communes you can see just how varied and extreme the aspect of each vineyard is and how in the space of a few metres just how dramatically the change.

Soil formation in the Barolo production area by Pierre le Hong.