Piedmont
26 wines 
Tastings
Tours
Booking required 
Wine area
Monferrato
Rolling Asti and Alessandria hills devoted to Barbera, plus the rarer Grignolino, Ruche and Freisa locals drink at home.
Araldica Vini Piemontesi
Araldica is a growers' cooperative at Castel Boglione, a village in the Monferrato hills between Asti and Acqui Terme. Fifty growers founded it in 1954. Today about 140 members farm 900 hectares, around 1,260 football pitches, across the Monferrato, Gavi, Langhe and Roero. That makes it one of the biggest vineyards in Piedmont, filling 26 million bottles a year. Barbera d'Asti is the speciality, with Gavi, Barolo and Moscato alongside. Its wine shop in the village opens most days, and visits and tastings can be arranged by appointment.
See the wines
Wines from Araldica Vini Piemontesi
About Araldica Vini Piemontesi
Under Don Carlo Montrucchio, fifty growers founded a cooperative at Castel Boglione in 1954. They named it Antica Contea di Castelvero, after the village's old name. Pietro Abate was the first president and oversaw the first harvest. The idea was to pool machinery, experience and ideas in a corner of Piedmont where growing grapes was thought a poor living. Under Pietro Laudano and Livio Manera the co-op grew through the 1960s. In the 1970s it built one of the region's biggest oak-ageing cellars. The oenologists Claudio Manera and Lella Burdese joined in the mid-1980s. In 1989 the co-op set up Araldica Vini Piemontesi, the name on this page, as its sales arm for new markets. Manera has been its general manager since 1991, and his line is on the home page: members, not bottlers.
Araldica is now a group with three estates, each run as a farm in its own right. Il Cascinone at Acqui Terme joined in 1999. It has 120 hectares in one block and is the flagship for Barbera d'Asti and Alta Langa. La Battistina at Gavi, bought in 2002, is planted only with Cortese. Tenuta Santa Seraffa, bought in 2016, sits on a hill above the Gavi zone. Since 2013 the group has also been the largest shareholder of Boutinot, one of the UK's biggest wine distributors. That is why so many Araldica wines reach British shelves, often under a shop's own name.
The co-op's method is control from the vine up. For more than thirty years every parcel has been assessed one by one. Each gets a programme that tells the grower when to prune, thin and pick, adjusted to the weather as the season goes. The central office buys and hands out what each grower needs, so treatments happen only when necessary. Growers are paid on the quality of what they deliver. The best lots are made and bottled apart as the premium Alasia line. Every bunch is picked by hand and pressed fresh at Castel Boglione, where the juice ferments in temperature-controlled steel.
Barbera d'Asti is where Araldica puts its effort. The wine goes into large Slavonian oak casks and small French oak barrels for six to eighteen months, depending on the label. The barrels come from the Vosges and stay in use for five or six years, so the oak never shouts over the fruit. The cellar covers 20,000 square metres, holds the equivalent of two million bottles and houses more than 500 of those small barrels. The Araldica list runs from Barbera d'Asti and the organic Cascina Nuova Nizza DOCG to Gavi, Roero Arneis, Moscato d'Asti, Brachetto d'Acqui, Barbaresco and Barolo. The co-op says the hills its growers farm are part of the vineyard landscape on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Araldica joined SQNPI, the Italian farm ministry's sustainable-viticulture scheme, in 2017, and the wines of its three estates carry the scheme's bee logo. It has measured its carbon footprint with DNV since the same year and has cut the weight of its bottles by up to 15%. It holds ISO 14001 for environmental management. A few wines, such as the Nizza, are made from organic grapes, though the co-op as a whole is not certified organic.
The Enoteca on Via Roma, next to the plant, sells the Araldica range, the three estates' wines and a selection from other regions. It opens on Monday afternoon, Tuesday to Saturday morning and afternoon, and Sunday morning. In December it stays open every day except Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Visits and tastings are arranged by appointment through the shop.
Plate I · PIEDMONT
Araldica Vini Piemontesi on the Piedmont wine atlas
Winery
Araldica Vini Piemontesi
Castel Boglione, Asti · Monferrato
Denominations Produced
Grapes Used
Visit & Experiences
Experiences at Araldica Vini Piemontesi
Nothing here can be booked online yet. The experiences below are documented by our editors. The estate's contact details are in Practical info.
Tasting & Tour
Enoteca Araldica, Via Roma 2, Castel Boglione
Visit and tasting at the Araldica wine shop
The co-op's wine shop, next to the plant, sets up visits and tastings if you book ahead. Ask at the shop or email [email protected]. It is open Monday afternoon, Tuesday to Saturday morning and afternoon, and Sunday morning. In December it opens daily except 25 and 26.
Ask the estate
Not bookable online yet
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Plan your visit
Viale Pietro Laudano, 2, 14040 Castel Boglione, Asti (Piemonte)
What Araldica Vini Piemontesi makes
Araldica Vini Piemontesi's current bottle selection is led by Gavi/Cortese di Gavi DOCG. The clearest grape signal comes from Barbera and Cortese.
Denominations
Key grapes
Common questions
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Araldica is at Viale Pietro Laudano 2, Castel Boglione, a village in the province of Asti in the Monferrato hills, between Asti and Acqui Terme. Its wine shop is at Via Roma 2 in the same village.
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