la spinetta castagnole lanze, piedmont

I have visited many vineyards and wineries throughout the world but rarely have I been as impressed as I was by my recent visit to La Spinetta. From my first contact via email followed by confirmation phone calls, to the knowledge and enthusiasm of the staff and management, I haven't experienced anything surpassing the professionalism of La Spinetta. And that's before inspecting the spotless wine making and storage facilities and tasting their range of outstanding wines. If you are in the Piedmont region of Italy I can not recommend highly enough a visit to La Spinetta. A couple of points are worthwhile emphasising:1. Make sure you ring and organise an appointment. Not only is this polite, but it will ensure you will be warmly greeted and benefit from a full tour of the facilities and a properly structured tasting.2. Get good directions to the winery. The roads in this part of Italy can be narrow and signage not always obvious. It is not really that hard to find the winery but make your trip easier by being well organised.

Several weeks prior to our trip, I arranged a tasting in advance with Manuela Rivetti, the Domestic Marketing Director and daughter of the winery's owner. Our Italian was limited but Manuela spoke excellent English. She gave us a tour of the winery and cellars; explained about the viniculture and making of the different wines made at the winery as well as the history of the winery. Manuela was very friendly and knowledgeable. Following the tour, we had a tasting of several of the excellent wines of various vintages. She provided cheese, bread and breadsticks to accompany the tasting. We all left the winery with several excellent wine selections. Highly recommended.

I discovered La Spinetta by accident several years ago after making a random purchase on Winebid.com. To this day the 1999 La Spinetta Barber D'Asit Superiore is still one of the best wines I have ever had. So we knew when we visited Piedmont we had to go. Anja was our contact and could not have been nicer or more helpful. She set us up with visits at Contratto and La Spinetta and scheduled lunch for us in betwen the visits. Lunch at Da Bardon was out of this world by the way. After sampling sparkling wine at Contratto in the morning we headed to La Spinetta in the afternoon and met Manuela. We tasted nearly one dozen wines and had to make the tough decision of what made the cut for our suitcase. We ended up with the Campe Barolo, Ca di Pian Barbera, Piemontese Chardonnay, and Passito. A nice sampling and all extraordinary wines. This is a must visit vineyard.

Manuela was a fantastic host and guide. We went around the winery and then tasted 8 wines. Nothing was rushed and nothing was too much trouble for her. I've no doubt we shall go again and unequivocally recommend it.

Let me start out with a little background. This has become my favorite winery in years past, i can remember the first time I had it. I had to write down all the info from the bottle, and on my trip to Italy, I thought... Why not see if we could go see it and do a tasting? So I started with looking up their website seeing if they do indeed do tastings. Witch they do, (reservations can be set up through their web site) After e-mailing Manuela and giving her the same kind of background i'm giving you, we set up a day and time that we could go. This was very much a side trip that I wanted and ended up driving about an hour outside of Milan. Renting a car and driving was crazy in the city, for a first time driver in Italy. The country side was beautiful and being able to stop at small towns on the way back made driving worth it. Once you get there, they have a room set up that can hold a small group or a larger gathering. When we went there was just the three of us. This made the tour and tasting very personable. Manuela was the one that took us around the warehouse and cellar. She also conducted the tasting. We later found out that she was the daughter of the founder. The tour was about 30 minutes long, and full of history and their plans for the future. The wine tasting portion was longer. During our walk around the grounds Manuela was asking questions about our taste in wine. That came in handy later, she new exactly what to give us to try. We ended up trying six varieties. We also ended up buying several (8) bottles, she even pulled some form her families private cellar so we could buy my favorite. Witch they had been sold out of. (way more reasonable then prices in the states) I would say the do not miss is La Spinetta Biancospino, Moscato d'Asti, buy it!! During the tasting we where offered cheese, bread sticks and great conversation. About wine, life in Italy and other places to visit while were in area. I have noted that there was a fee for this trip, however that fee was waved for us because we bought wine while we were there.

La competenza e la passione con la quale la signora Manuela ci ha fatto visitare le cantine spiegano chiaramente perché la qualita' del prodotto Spinetta è cosi alto - imperdibile

La Spinetta fica em Castagnole Lanze, um vilarejo pertencente a Barbaresco. Visita a todos os ambientes da vinícola, com ênfase para a área de produção e armazenamento. Ao final, uma excelente degustação, quando provamos oito vinhos da vinícola.

arrivo con curiosita' alle cantine con mia moglie astemia alla ricerca di una bottiglia di ottimo barbera Ca' di Pian assaggiata la sera prima e una ragazza in ufficio mi dice che sta per iniziare una degustazione di un gruppo se per caso volevo unirmi...ma come no...ed eccomi seduto a tavola vicino a sei ragazzi campani simpaticissimi per quella che ricordero' per molto tempo come un'ora e mezza fantastica. L'enologo Stephen con il suo accento francese ci guida nell'eccellenza della cantina Spinetta con ben 11 assaggi tra Barbera, Nebbiolo, Barbaresco , Barolo per finire con un freschissimo Moscato d'asti.ho assaporato e gustato l'eccellenza dei vini italiani di questa zona, bottiglie favolose sempre ben descritte e commentate. le mie tasche mi hanno consentito anche un piccolo acquisto. gita consigliatissima davvero voto 10 e lode!!!!!!!!!!!!!!