La Colombera
The Estate
Elisa Semino owns and runs La Colombera together with her father and brother. Their engagement and dedication to the territory and vineyards, the production chain with due regard to the territory and an ac- curate work in the wine cellar have led La Colombera to be one of the most preferred wineries offering the Timorasso wine, the Colli Tortonesi’s legend.
In 1937, Elisa’s grandparents rented La Colombera in Vho, Tortona’s hamlet, sited on the first hills at the border of the Po Valley. The landscape offers lovely vineyards inter- laid by roses, narrow valleys reaching the near Apennines, rows of peach and cherry trees, acacia and chestnut woods, chickpea and wheat fields. This geologically ancient land, composed by Tortonian white stones lends incomparable characteristics to the grapes, grown by the winery for over 60 years: Barbera, Croatina, Cortese as well as the local Nibio and Timorasso.
Timorasso is a local white grapes vine, cultivated in the Tortonian territory since the Middle Ages. Already mentioned in the first agrarian encyclopedia of the XIV century, this wine confirms its tendencies and, over the centuries, becomes the most important Piedmontese white vine. After World War II its production is gradually abandoned, as other more vigorous and resistant grapes are preferred.
The Wine
The whole semino family consider the vineyard as a “heritage”:
The respect for agriculture and the land value gets back to the origin of La Colombera, when grandparents Pietro and Maria rented a farm on the hills in Vho in 1938. Wheat, chickpeas and alfalfa are grown there, till the end of World War II, when Renato, who survived the war, marries Giuliana. At the birth of Piercarlo, their son, they buy the first tractor and plant the vineyards.
The land is handed down from father to son:
The farm lives on its own economy. In the booming years the vineyards expand but the cereal portion remains predominant until the ’70s, when Piercarlo decides not to deliver the grapes but to make and bottle the wine himself. Piercarlo and his son Lorenzo take care of the farming and mechanical sector. Lorenzo has been a snowboard champion of the Italian National Team, leaving this sport and the beloved mountains to help his sister in the winery adventure.
Hands at work, respect for nature, soil preservation:
Nowadays La Colombera is run in the respect to the surrounding ecosystem. Only copper fungicide and sulphur are used in the vineyards. No herbicide: manual work in all activities is favoured in the vineyards, from pruning to harvest. The maximum sustainability and soil preservation policy is applied. In the cellar, only sulphur is added before bottling.