Olivero Mario Barolo

Olivero Mario is first of all a family and then a winery. My name is Lorenzo, I was born in 1981 and I’ve been working with my father Mario since 2003, when our adventure started. Our winery is located in Roddi, the smallest among the 11 villages of the Barolo producing area. Roddi lies in the farthest northern part of the Barolo area, just at the edge of Alba, the capital of the wine and gastronomy tourism. Here you can find our winery together with some of the vineyards the grapes are picked from. The others are scattered in the neighboring villages: La Morra, Alba and Rodello, at 15km from our winery. The 6 hectares under vines make around 30000 bottles a year. My father and I produce robust wines coming from our most important native vineyards and accounting for our image on the territory. We produce Nebbiolo, Barbera, Dolcetto and Arneis under 7 different labels. I always try to best summarize all the work carried out in the vineyard. The winemaking process depends on the weather conditions: rainfalls determine when and how the grapes come to the cellar, while temperatures are responsible for the beginning of the fermentation process. I follow the alcoholic fermentations carefully by using both selected yeasts and the native ones from the vineyard and the cellar, depending on the vintage, the grapes condition and the wine I want to make. During maceration we extract polyphenols (the anthocyanins colouring the wine and the tannins providing the structure) by means of pumping over and manual pigeage. Occasionally we carry out delestage (temporary drawing off of the fermenting must) to maximize the anthocyanins extraction. Malolactic fermentations occur naturally due to the presence of the bacteria lactic count in the wine with the exception of Arneis, for which this type of fermentation is avoided by controlling its temperature, in order to preserve its natural acidity. The wine making process takes into account the peculiarity of each single grape variety and vineyard. Despite choosing not to be equipped with expensive technology I take care of hygiene, fermentation and ageing control temperature, as well as humidity, with the utmost care. Attention to details is ensured by our low impact natural viticulture without herbicides. Manual labour in the vineyard requires a long time but is a synonym of high quality: from pruning to harvesting we follow carefully designed procedures like green pruning, “sfemminellatura” (the cutting back of sterile canes), trellising and selection by means of cluster thinning. We use organic products for our fertilizations to restore the energies consumed in the grapes production and maturation. Plants are protected by accurately planned phytosanitary treatments to preserve the health of the environment, the vines and the grapes. That is why I’m personally in charge of the vineyards care all over the year so as not to lose sight of the challenges and satisfaction this job brings about.