Collaboration with universities


Over the years, Cascina Gilli has carried out important projects in collaboration with the Crop Sciences Department at the Università di Torino, and in particular with Prof. Schneider and Prof. Mannini with the goal of identifying true clones of the historic Malvasia di Schierano grape.
Our relationships with Castelnuovo-area growers are also valuable, since they are enabling us to learn more of the hidden qualities of this local area and of its wines, which only experience can reveal.
Our research has made possible the planting of vineyards with selected plant material that are capable of yielding great wines. Clone selection was not guided by quantity concerns but by locating those vineyards which, in the memories of local growers, yielded the most interesting wines.
Once the first clonal selections of malvasia had been made, and the vineyards planted, we turned our attention to other grape varieties traditional to the area, such bonarda piemontese and barbera.
Bonarda piemontese has grown on these hills since the 19th century, but its use was declining, due to the variety’s sensitivity to adverse weather and to vine diseases. But local producers still loved the wine, since it possesses a particularly rich bouquet and ages very well. Barbera is widespread in Piedmont but marginal in our own area, since it is a thin-skinned grape and the heavy rains experienced up until the 1990s did not favour it. The lesser amounts of rain in the most recent decades have made the Castelnuovo area an exceptionally fine zone for barbera.
Putting into practice the fundamental rules of good oenology meant that even in our early years Cascina Gilli was able to produce wines that earned top scores by experts. Improvements in winemaking practices in the 1990s were put into effect by small producers as well and led to even better wines. That required greater commitment and more intense research, requirements that Carlo Feyles first and then Bruno Tamagnone fully met.
A great deal of effort must be expended to transform the grapes into wine, including appropriate maceration time, fermentation temperatures, the correct amount of oxygenation during the winemaking process and ageing: all of these parameters are refined by continuous, applied experimentation, which continues unabated today.
Whereas the “Freisa brand” had almost disappeared in the 1980s and consumers regarded it as a difficult and sometimes off-putting wine, today we can be proud of having contributed to the development and improvement of this magnificent grape.

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