The Comparison

Involvement in the Alba Confcoltivatori and participation in many initiatives promoted and organised by this agricultural union were important in the first stretch of Luciano Sandrone's business journey. His firm was taking its first steps and needed points of reference, concrete guidance and also a physical space where to compare notes with other producers who, like him, were beginning to produce.
There were several firms with which Luciano shared his initial journey. Today they are important estates such as La Spinetta by Giorgio Rivetti, Malvirà by Roberto and Massimo Damonte, Azienda Agricola Pelissero by Giorgio Pelissero, Azienda Agricola Cigliuti by Renato Cigliuti and, then also, Piero Gatti and Bartolo Mascarello.
They shared a desire to do things together, to grow and develop their enterprises in harmony, viewing others as colleagues and not competitors. With a great spirit of collaboration this small group of producers sought external synergies too. They wanted to grow globally to give a concrete future to their projects. So they aligned themselves with technicians and operators who could serve the growth of their business structures.
"I believe the most useful and favourable synergy for our endeavours – Luciano underlines – was the one with Prof. Felice Cavallotto. A lecturer in viticulture and oenology with particular reference to wine tasting at the Oenological School of Alba, he had recently retired and enthusiastically made himself available to meet us, to guide us in collective tastings of many wines, ours and those of other producers, local and from farther afield. The availability and support of Prof. Cavallotto filled me personally with pride: the doyen of the territory's tasters agreed to engage with a group of young producers at the beginning of their experience".
"Tasting together, – Renato Cigliuti also comments – comparing the value and consistency of so many wines was very useful for us: on the one hand it opened our minds and horizons making us understand that in the world there were not only our wines; on the other, it helped us to constantly improve the quality level of our products".
The meeting place was in Alba, in Via Cavour, which both then and now is colloquially known as <Contrà 'd Tàne> (the Tanaro quarter) because it led towards the river that lapped the capital city of the Langhe. It was the Confcoltivatori headquarters and for this small group of producers it was a fundamental technical and behavioural training ground and, in some ways, the incubator of their development projects.
In those very years, they also encountered another protagonist of the Alba wine scene, oenologist Armando Cordero, whom Luciano had already met during his time at Marchesi di Barolo. Armando Cordero was destined to become one of the reference points for the Barbaresco and Barolo producing cellars and already in those years he revealed his exquisite propensity to engage willingly with sector protagonists, especially producers. Cordero too was decisive in accompanying these young producers through their delicate development phase.