A small, traditional producer making classic wines from Gattinara's best terroir.
"Some of these barrels are over 100 years old", said Giancarlo as we stood in his dark underground cellar, tucked away, behind one of Gattinara's many side streets. Petterino is one of the last handful of producers who waits until the wine is ready to drink to release their wines. He pointed to another barrel - "that one is Gattinara 2008, we just bottled the 2002."
"We've always made wine. Sempre." Said Giancarlo. His great grandparents produced wine and sold it sfuso (in bulk) to restaurants, private customers, commercianti (merchants), etc.
He went on to explain that after the devastating hail of 1905 (add link to article), the vines didn't produce fruit for two years, so his grandfather, in charge of the winery at the time, moved to America to find work in the mines. His grandfather would have stayed there and the winery's legacy would have ended right then and there. But his grandmother didn't want to leave Gattinara, so his grandfather came back, and Giancarlo's father was born. And so the legacy lived on.
"In 2005, a hundred years later, we began to export our wines into the United States," he said with an ear-to-ear grin.
But it wasn't easy. When producing wine was not lucrative enough to live off of, both Marco and Giancarlo worked in the factory to save money to invest in the winery and to purchase new vineyards.
It's easy to see, since producing wine was not sustainable, why so many abandoned the countryside.
They started bottling in 1982 with the opening of the Bottega del Vino (town of Gattinara basically convinced them to bottle).
“These are our traditions. Generations of people who have been doing this for hundreds of years." - Marco Petterino
The winery is a two-man show - Gianluca and his brother Marco do it all, from bottling to working their 2.5 hectares. They don't even hire anyone to help with the harvest!
The Hill of Gattinara
"Sono sull'ultimo pezzo di Benzina" I explained to Signor Petterino as we made our way out to the hill of Gattinara in my Fiat Panda rental.
I had stayed in Gattinara the previous year and had been staying just twenty minutes way for the whole month, but I had never seen the Hill of Gattinara. Giancarlo politely offered to show me the vineyards. He directed me toward a small road...seemed like a ....
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