The Winery: our history

On the Briona’s hills, dominated by the majestic Rocca Sforzesca, the vineyards have always found a perfect territory. Ancient evidences, dated around the year 1100, speak about the presence in Briona of the Caneva di San Gaudenzio, which was the cellar used to serve the bishops in the whole Novara’s area. Today in that same place there is the Castaldi cellar.

The history of Briona, its castle and its beautiful churches, plaits with the history of the family which from Cavaglio d’Agogna got to the town of Briona by crossing the hills in Barengo at the end of 1700 and there started passionately to grow grapes. Successive generations have managed the vineyards on the hills and starting from the 30s the land passed in Pierino Castaldi’s hands, who was very passionate about viticulture and innovations. He was a tenacious man and very smart, even without being very wealthy at the end of World War II he managed to build his first tractor. He named it “Nobody’s son” because he built it just by putting together recovery parts that he got from other machineries. Pierino always believed in quality and he witnessed the birth of the Fara DOC appellation in 1969. There are still some bottles of that wine in the cellar.

In 1997 his daughter Francesca took over the family vineyards and started a project of renewal. In the vineyards, she dismissed little by little the “tendone” o “pergola” pruning system, which was still largely used in that area, in favor of Guyot, which guarantees a longer life for the vines along with a better quality for the grapes. Se replanted some of the already existing parcels, choosing planting distances suitable for a more modern viticulture, to optimize the product quality and the field managing efficiency. During the first years of her adventure only a small quantity of the grapes produced was processed to become wine in her brother Giuseppe’s cellar. As the years went by, rose the need for a cellar where it would be possible to process all the grapes produced, using more modern equipment. In 2011 the renewal works of the old porch where Pierino produced the first vintages of Fara DOC got to an end. Finally, the new cellar allowed Francesca to prosecute with her wines the project that she started in the vineyards, being able to offer a modern interpretation of Briona’s territory traditions. From 2016 her son Marco started to work with her at the winery, ensuring the continuation of the Castaldi family’s wine tradition.