Monte Maletto

Gian Marco Viano’s path into grape growing and winemaking was by the route of high-end restaurants, having always had a deep interest in wine. He worked as a sommelier at several prestigious restaurants in Glasgow, London and Italy but eventually tired of the long hours. He applied to various wineries and was employed in the tasting room in the well-known Barolo winery of G.D. Vajra. This gave him the chance to talk to the workers in the vineyard and the cellar. As a result, he thought he would have a go at winemaking, starting with three demi-johns in a friend’s garage. He was then fortunate to be offered his first vineyard in Carema, 0.3 hectares, in 2015. The deal was that he would do the work in return for a few bottles of wine. As he reflects, this was the point at which the size of the Carema vineyard was at its lowest. It had been 60 hectares in the distant past, but the steeper parts, high above the village, were progressively abandoned to the point where there were less than 14 hectares in production. Since the arrival of new investors and the generation of young people taking up the challenge, it has grown back to 24 hectares. Of these, Monte Maletto has 1.2, with another 0.5 being added in 2025.

Gian Marco began by thinking that Guyot pruning was the key to quality in Carema. However, studies showed him that vines on trellises had, on average, one per cent more alcohol and lower acidity. He is now a fan of the pergola system. However, he believes it needs to evolve to meet contemporary conditions. First, people just do not have the time to go to the woods and cut down trees for the poles that they need, and simply buying the wood is expensive. In addition, the old way of training with huge amounts of old wood on each vine was intended for quantity, not quality. The shape of the pergola is a bonus as the fruit is protected from the midday sun but still gets the morning and evening rays. Further, the canopy is open to the wind, thus reducing disease pressure. Given these factors, he will continue with pergola but the with much less old wood and a lighter canopy, meaning that the structure itself can be lighter (wires can replace some of the poles) and less expensive to erect. While not formally organic, Gian Marco has reduced treatments to sulfur only (no copper) and employs orange oil essence as a deterrent to oidium. He thinks that his ferments have avoided going into reduction since he stopped spraying with copper in the vineyard.

For his white wine, Vecchie Toneaux, Gian Marco sources the Erbaluce grapes in the nearby village of Roppolo. His practice is to pick as late as possible, which can work with Erbaluce, which has tough skins. The grapes are destemmed and pressed, the wine left to ferment naturally. Halfway through fermentation, the wine is transferred to old barrels (some approaching 20 years!) to complete alcoholic and malolactic fermentation. It is not touched until summer, moved back to stainless steel and then bottled unfiltered. As he says, for me, making wine is simple; the challenge is to grow great grapes.

His approach to his two Carema wines is similar. Sole e Roccia (‘sun and rock’) is made with 100 per cent Nebbiolo from fruit in a number of different parcels, especially in the central area of La Costa. He normally destems all the fruit but may add some selected, fully ripe stems back into the juice, an approach he learnt from Luca de Marchi at Proprietà Sperino. In the hot, dry 2022, he added 50 per cent of the stems; in 2021 and the wet 2024, he added none. The fermenting wine stays on the skins and stems for about a month, with punch downs a couple of times a day. After this, it is sent straight to 225-litre barrels. The barrel size is a practical choice as Gian Marco wants to make the wine from each small vineyard plot separately and then blend it later. Even his newer barrels are 3–4 years old. The wine remains untouched in the barrels for just under two years before blending and bottling. The single vineyard wine, La Costa, is made in a broadly similar way though it is only produced in top vintages. There is no destemming, and Gian Marco’s young (and light!) children enjoy crushing the grapes underfoot. The gentle herbaceousness from stems can add complexity, a three-dimensional note, to the wine. In comparison with other Carema wines, the result is relatively dark-fruited wines that need some time in the bottle to soften and develop.

Gian Marco loves working with nature. As he says, working here makes me feel better, and he rejoices in the fact that much of the work is just the same as 100 years ago. His approach is to work with what nature gives him and to make the very best of that. If alcohol levels were much lower in 2024 due to persistent rain throughout the season, he accepts that. He does not want to interfere; only to do the best he can with what he has been given.