Cascina Castella di Cassino Silvio

Perched high above the Langhe in the village of Roddino, just across the border from Serralunga d’Alba, the Cassino family farm, Cascina Castella, owns 4.5ha of vineyards in the comune of Roddino & in Sinio. They grow Dolcetto, Barbera, Nebbiolo & Rossese Bianco. In the 1990s, papa Silvio Cassino started to commercialise their wines, but it wasn’t until his two daughters, Elena (nata ’91) & Monica (’94) graduated from Alba’s Liceo Linguistico ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ that things became more serious…

Upon graduation in 2014 Monica decided to expand her horizons & move to Germany, a step that led her to enrol at the prestigious Hochschule Geisenheim University in 2015 where she studied enologia & viticultura. Graduating in 2019 she returned to the family cantina & teamed up with her sister Elena. Vintage 2021 was their debutto year together, which coincidentally saw the release of their first Langhe Nebbiolo; in the same year they began work renovating the family’s splendid cascina.

The family has always prided itself in being guardians of the rare Rossese Bianco grape, a grape with Ligurian roots, that is found in the comunes of Sinio, Roddino, & Monforte d’Alba, of which they produce c.2k bts/anno. The Nebbiolo comes from a wonderful borgata in Sinio, called Bricco del Gallo, 500m asl high up & SW facing, on marne, limestone & arenarie soils, giving high toned wines not dissimilar to those of Serralunga d’Alba directly in front! And in the cuore of this borgata is found ‘La Castella’, a mini-hamlet of houses built & inhabited by Elena & Monica’s grandfather until he passed away in 2011. Plus they have some deliciously furry old vine Dolcetto! 

Looking ahead, in 2023 they will be releasing their inaugural (2019) Barolo, a tiny quantity sourced from a supplier in the Monforte d’Alba MGA of Perno!