Casabrina

	Casa Brina Casa Brina is more than a wine producing company. In fact, it has hosted conferences, put on cultural, artistic and musical events, and even published books for 20 years. Today, it is a cultural centre for the Monferrato and Langhe districts and its production can be best described as vino-cultura, a lively and immediate way of discovering a region through its traditions and its finest products. This is an innovative way of looking at wine that is made for a new, quality conscious public that is looking for quality in all aspects of life.
Casa Brina is the Bava family’s artistic centre. Every year the Casa Brina label adorns just a few small parcels of experimental wines, labels that have been specially commissioned from artists who have visited the property’s vaulted eighteenth century cellars. These are all limited productions, but much sought after for their graphic and pictorial qualities.
.	The cellars. Constructed in 1722, the cellars are located in the centre of the village of Cocconato. The buildings are based on a courtyard-based farmhouse typical of the area. The original cellars have now been restored to hold bottles, of course, but also as a venue for concerts and conferences, as an exibition centre for old wine making implements and an unusual collection of Altar wines, and of course, as regular cellars full of barriques and barrels for wine ageing. Casa Brina also comprises a guest house, and part of the complex forms the family home.
The wines. There are two DOC Barbera d’Asti wines, one aged in highly-prized woods, both with labels designed by the Florentine artists/sculptor Felice Botta, the same man who designed a special sculpture for the DOCG Gavi label. Made from grapes picked on the family property at Castiglione Falletto, the DOCG Barolo also has label of an original Felice Botta sculpture, the same design that once graced the front cover of the international wine magazine Decanter a few ago.
	Franco Balan, the well-known designer from Val d’Aosta, is responsible both for the Cortese del Monferrato DOC label and the label of the Extra Virgin Olive Oil produced by friends of the family in Tuscany and presented in a bottle specially created for Casa Brina.
Carlo Carosso, the Greco-Piedmontese artist/sculptor, has painted a Bacchus for the youthful, aromatic Malvasia di Castelnuovo Don Bosco DOC. A DOC sparking rosè version of the same wine is one of Casa Brina’s best-known house specialities.
	Ruchè di Castagnole Monferrato DOC is made from one of the very rarest grape variety in the area. It is vinified at Casa Brina, not only because of its intrinsic quality, but also to maintain links with the unique tastes of the past, so different to some of today’s fashionable wines wich often all taste the same.
The range finishes with an elegant Dolcetto d’Asti DOC, an extremely aromatic Moscato d’Asti DOCG and a vieille vigne Barbera Monferrato DOC Bric dei Conigli, made from grapes picked in the family’s oldest vineyard, but still made in the traditional petillant style of the deep Monferrato.
	There is only one grappa, the rare one made of Ruchè, and presented in a tall clear glass bottle.
Alleluja is a truly unique Vino Santo di Moscato, made exclusively for sacramental use according to the precepts of the Study Group for Altar Wine which meets in Casa Brina and co-ordinates the famous international Seminar on Altar Wine.
	Cellar visits The cellars in Via Piave are open to visitors on weekdays and, by appointment, at weekends and bank holidays, too. Visits to the Strada Monferrato winery down in the valley are possible during the autumn vinification period. The winery also contains the company’s wine shop (always open; book for guided tastings).
Concerts and conferences are held in the eighteenth century cellars in Via Piave in the centre of Cocconato, where the museum of old winemaking implements and the Altar Wine collection are also open to visitors.