Olive Tree Farmhouse - Ilaria Bellotti

Cascina degli Ulivi is a biodynamic farm located in the hills of Novi Ligure in the province of Alessandria. It's best known for its wines, but the project has a broader scope.

We have a diverse agricultural production, livestock farming, and a farm where you can buy our products, enjoy lunch and dinner with food and wines from the estate, and stay in the Piedmont countryside. Cascina degli Ulivi has been in the Bellotti family since 1930: Stefano decided to live here, immersed in the land, in the silence and extraordinary beauty of this countryside. "I began farming in 1977, at the age of 18, taking over the small family farm where no more than one hectare of vineyard remained. With the help and guidance of an elderly neighbor, Pietro Toccalino, who was illiterate but passionate and knowledgeable, I began making wine 'without oenology.'" Even though I come from a Genoese family, I'm in Acqui Terme, which was a completely agricultural town in the 1960s. I'd leave home and my mother would send me to get milk from a farmhouse that's now completely in the city. Back then, it was just outside the house. My father was a doctor and had a passion for the countryside. He took advantage of being hired by the Acqui hospital, and the first thing he did was plant a vegetable garden. When he left the hospital, he spent his time there, in the countryside, and we're talking about cycling. Where there used to be countryside, now there are supermarkets and shopping malls. In the past, Acqui was surrounded by vineyards. In the first century AD, the Romans began producing wine here. I remember as a child and a young man—it was the era of property developers and real estate speculation—every time a digger came to lower a bucket, they would pop up from all over Acqui. About a hundred of them, perhaps. And we kids would ride our bikes to watch the spectacle. They would dig up amphorae everywhere. The city was a flourishing Roman city. Wine was everywhere in Monferrato; it was part of everyday life. I remember it being bottled at home because they carried the wine in demijohns. It was a ritual my mother tended to take care of, and it fascinated me greatly. I would lend her a hand, and the scent of the wine intoxicated me. I always asked to taste it. My father always allowed me a drop. That scent was fascinating. As for the grape harvests, I started later. Cascina degli Ulivi had already become my family's property, and we would come here. in the summer. I began actively participating in the grape harvest in 1969, when I was 11 years old. We went into the "navazza" barefoot, even though we already had the roller crusher, which also served as a destemmer.” “My first harvest, the one exclusively mine, always with the help of Pietro Toccalino, but managed by me and which had become my thing, was in 1975. I was 17 years old then. This year marks forty-one harvests in my life. Back then, we had one hectare of vineyard, with Barbera, Dolcetto which we vinified separately, and a little Cortese. In the first few years, because they scared me by telling me that making white wine was too difficult, I sold the white grapes and only made red. Later, I also made white wine.”