Ferraris Agricola Barbera d’Asti Del Martìn 2021

This one comes from a super talented young winemaker in Luca Ferraris who is doing pretty incredible things in the popular wine village of Monferrato. Luca took over his family’s winery at the turn of the century, and promptly flipped the region on his head and has been pacing the pact in Asti ever since.

Luca’s great-grandparents actually bought the house, farmhouse and plot to the land with the money that Luca’s great-grandfather Luigi earned during the ‘Gold Rush’ in California. Luigi would earn big checks and send them to the house to buy all this stuff back home.For decades, 100% of the production from the winery’s vineyards was given to the town’s Social Cooperative.

But eventually when Luca’s grandfather passed away in the late 1980’s, Luca’s father decided he no longer wished to keep the land. He tried his hand at farming for a year or two before eventually selling all but 9 rows of vines – leaving instead to pursue business opportunities in nearby Turin.

Fast forward a few years, Luca finished his military service and was eager to start a life in wine. He decided to come back for his 9 rows, focusing on a Nebbiolo-like, obscure indigenous varietal, Ruchè. The rest as they say was history.

Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon would meet up with the young winemaker at VinItaly in 2002. Blown away by the wine, he would later send Luca a fax asking for 1000(!) cases of his ‘Ruche’ for his Ca del Solo project. And with one fax, a young winemaker’s life was forever changed and the moniker ‘Mr. Ruche’ was born.