Ciabot Berton
”We have a real passion for our terroir. We want to let the beauty and the endless facets of the Langhe area express in our wines.”
Ciabot Berton is a beautiful piemontese winery located in the Barolo area and more precisely in La Morra (Italy). It’s a family owned domaine created and still managed by the Oberto family, the fifth generation.
Currently Ciabot Berton extends over 14 hectares mostly planted with Nebbiolo. They also have small plots of typical grape varieties like Dolcetto, Barbera and Favorita (white). « We planted Favorita because we love the floral, minerality features and the really intense bouquet of this grape… and because it’s also a part of our local wine history. » This domaine produces every year around 80.000 bottles divided in 10 different cuvées. The main part of the production is from different beautiful crus of Barolo such as Roggeri, Rocchettevino or Del Comune di La Morra. The property also produces wonderful cuvées of Barbera d’Alba such as Bricco S. Biagio or Fisetta.
Let’s go to meet Marco Oberto, owner and winemaker of Ciabot Berton and his wife Federica.
Where does Ciabot Berton come from?
Marco Oberto: In Piemonte dialect a ‘Ciabot’ is a small house that you can usually see in the vineyards. It is a structure to keep the tools used in the vineyards.
Concerning ‘Berton’, in the past in the heart of our vigna Roggeri there was a house where the legend says it was inhabited by a Gentlemen called Berton. Surrounded by the vineyards, he used to produce wines but his other secret passion was trying to produce « home-made » fireworks. One day the roof of the house exploded because of that. So when Luigi Oberto built the new winery where it is now, he decided to change the name on the label to Ciabot Berton to connect the winery to the place where it was built
Why do you make wine?
M.O.: It was actually my father in law Luigi who started to make wine. He came from a family which was already involved in vine-growing and winemaking. By that time many farmers like his family used to sell grapes to other wineries. At the age of 25 Luigi Oberto, who was very ambitious decided to start to make wines by himself, somehow contravening his father Giovenale’s wishes. He had also a great experience and knowledge of the land, of the work in the vineyards. He wanted to do something better and more specialized out of his work.
His first wine was a Barolo, vintage 1961, a wine able to show all his sacrifices and committment in producing wine. By that time many people moved to Turin to find work in the industrial city, but he decided to stay and invest all his energy in a territory full of richness and history.
In 1991 when my husband Marco became enologist and decided to step into the family business, together with my father-in.law Luigi, they were able to enlarge step by step the vineyards surface and the production of bottles.Thanks also to the support of Paola, the sister of my husband, we have started to apply many organic farming practices such as cover crops (green manuring), sexual confusion, respect for biodiversity on the way to the non-use of chemical products.
Could you describe in a few words what wine means to you ? M.O.: Wine means to us above all passion : we love what we do and we like to do it the best way possible. Producing wine is like making a painting : it’s the result of factors related to climate, soil and your experience in knowing what to do in order to achieve your desidered outcome. It requires patience, experience and tenacity.
What is the signature of your wine? How do you recognize your wines in a blind tasting?
M.O.: The aim which drives our work is to show the purity and the elegance of our terroir We vinify all parcels separately, so that we can recognize the real typical features of each single vineyard. Our primary goal is to bring to the cellar perfect high-quality grapes, because a good wine can be made only with perfectly ripe grapes. Doing this, in the cellar we can carry out the simplest and most natural vinification and ageing processes. Our wines express the fruit from which they are made, the vintage in which they are grown and our philosophy in wine making with all other elements in balance to complement the fruit. We work hard in order to be able to highlight the finesse in our wines : We want them to tell you from where they come from.
Do you have any future projects?
M.O.: We have been expanding our vineyard, planting new vineyards of Nebbiolo in La Morra, close to the winery. Through the years we have been enhacing our vineyards’management towards an approch closer and closer to sustainability and biodiversity. We want to produce a wine that can expresses a sort of synergy among the vines and the men always respecting the exposition of the vineyards and their needs…Finally we wish to bring to the glass a wine with a sense of place, a terroir wine.
For the anecdote, please can you speak about the Sun label packaging ? M.O.: We choose to put the sun in our label after we saw it drawn in an ancient palace in Urbino (Marches, italy). We thought that the Baroque style of that sun was a perfect fit for a rich, complex, « sumptuous » and layered wine like Barolo. Beside this, the sun is an essential element in our work, especially during the ripening cycle of the grapes. It is something able to give strength and energy. Without Sun, there would be no life.
• Ciabot Berton Frazione S. Maria, 1 – 12064 La Morra (Italy) www.ciabotberton.it