Cascina 'Tavijn Vino Rosso 2018

Barbera/Ruche blend. From estate parcels scattered about the steep hills of the Monferrato zone of Asti near the village of Scurzolengo. The Verrua family--Nadia and her mother Maria Teresa and her father Ottavio--farms the vines organically, tending and harvesting them entirely by hand. The grapes are destemmed with berries kept whole and gently pressed without breaking the skins, just enough to kick off fermentation in vat. Fermentations can be very lengthy in this cold cellar, where there is no addition of yeasts or sulfur and no temperature control; maceration is often as long as two months. Aging for the Barbera-Ruche blend is in a mix of tank and Slavonian oak for around a year, before bottling without fining or filtering and with a maximum of 2 grams of sulfur.

Label note: look for the usual bold lines and colors by artist/friend of the family Gianluca Cannizzo. in this case depicting two faces sporting a big yellow hat "68' across its front.