Winery Domenico Clerico

Adress: 12065 Monforte d'Alba (Cn)
Country: Italy
internet: http://www.domenicoclerico.it
Wine district: Piemonte
wines

..."Dear Dad, it is with great honour that I accept the job of carrying on the business that you created with a lifetime of hard work! But I beg you to accept my wishes: with the greatest respect for everything you have done and passed on to me, I want to go ahead and only make wine. With your support and Giuliana's help, I want to show everyone that I can make great wines that people will appreciate, because the land where we live has something precious that we still do not fully understand"...

Since then, I have always given preference to work among the vines, convinced that to obtain good wines you have to care for the vineyard with love and dedication. You have to develop a deeply-felt bond of continual " exchange" with the soil in order to learn what the vine needs in every season of the year. It was this that led me to thin out the vines in favour of quality, and then to the use of new wine-making techniques that have given me products of great consistency, such as the use of barriques for ageing, unknown until then.

..."So, I want to tell you an anecdote! 
The old-timers. In your opinion, why didn't the old-timers plant Nebbiolo vines below 150 metres above sea-level and not above 450 metres? Why did they favour a south-easterly exposure above the others?
Because experience accumulated over generations had taught them that Nebbiolo fruits better at altitude, and that particular exposure was the best for alternating other crops with the vines, such as wheat or broad beans – essential for sustenance!"...

It is much easier for us nowadays – technology allows us to obtain the maximum with minimum effort, and today we are able to reach great results even where it was most difficult for the old-timers. 
But traditions should not be forgotten: we should learn to enhance the "old" with the "new".