From just one hectare of Nebbiolo planted in 2020, Bera’s debut ‘Ninet’ proves that even young vines can speak with striking clarity. Known for Barbera and Moscato, the estate took a bold leap into Piemonte’s most noble grape, farming organically and working entirely by hand as always. The clusters are destemmed and left to ferment spontaneously in raw concrete, with no temperature control, no sulfur, and just a week’s maceration to keep things bright and lifted. A year’s rest in the same tanks preserves its purity, and bottling is done unfiltered with only a very small dose (1 gram/hectoliter) of sulfur. The name — local dialect for “little boy”— is a nod to its youth, but the wine shows poise beyond its years. Pale ruby in the glass, it bursts with violets, sour cherry, and a hint of orange peel. Sleek and energetic, with fine-grained tannins and mouthwatering acidity, it’s as at home beside a midweek charcuterie board as it is with a rich mushroom risotto.
We have a lot to be thankful for in Alessandra Bera. Not only is she responsible for some of our favorite Asti wines, she got Louis/Dressner Selections, importer of many of the bottles that grace our shelves and a lot of wine club wines, into Italy in the first place! In late 2002, the Louis/Dressner team started getting exuberant emails from a winemaker in Piemonte insisting they had to try her wines. Alessandra had been sent their way by friends in France — Pierre Breton, Marcel Richaud, the Puzelat brothers, and Claude Marechal — all convinced her natural farming and winemaking were a perfect fit for the portfolio Intrigued, they met at Catherine & Pierre Breton’s legendary Dive Bouteille tasting in Angers, and quickly saw her friends were right. Still, being new to Italian wine, they worried about adding just one Italian producer. Alessandra had a solution: they’d visit her family estate, and she’d gather other like-minded growers for a tasting. That day they met Cascina degli Ulivi, Cascina Tavijn, and La Biancara — all of whom remain in the portfolio today. The Bera estate itself dates to 1785, when Alessandra’s ancestors bought land from the Knights of Malta. Moscato had already been grown here for centuries, but while the region later succumbed to industrial Asti Spumante, the Beras remained true to their vines. They became the first in Canelli to bottle and sell their own wine, farming steep, calcareous marl slopes organically and fermenting with native yeasts. Today, Alessandra’s brother Gianluigi makes all the wines, from their celebrated Moscato d’Asti, to soulful Dolcetto, Barbera, and Nebbiolo.