Cantina Produttori Nebbiolo di Carema Winery

Scenario

The wine sector is in 2024 one of the most important sectors of the Italian economy. As of today, there is a large increase in Italian wine exports to the world, especially sparkling wine (Prosecco) (Azteni, 2025). Exports had an increase of 5.5 percent compared to 2023, while in domestic consumption is declining sharply from year to year (in 2025 -3.8 percent).

These trends are ridden by large wine companies, the only ones who can afford the most expensive investments that allow them to be distributed and known worldwide. Therefore, this system benefits the most structured and well-known companies while the small ones remain penalized (Milan Wine Week, 2024).

Moreover, this system favors a particularly intensive and conventional form of viticulture and winemaking, where chemical inputs are massive to maximize bottle production.

In this context, Slow Food is committed to protecting and defending small and artisanal food and even wine production realities that are struggling to survive. Slow Food Presidia are high-quality products that come from local production chains, where social and environmental sustainability coexist. This certification defends not only identity food products , but also the foodscapes in which the products are made and the people who live them.

Too often these realities are forgotten by consumers and institutions, when in fact they tell centuries-old stories and traditions during which man and nature co-evolved simultaneously, adapting to each other (Slow Food, 2024).

Description

The Cantina dei Produttori Nebbiolo di Carema is a winemaking cooperative that was founded in the early 1960s by 10 winemakers near the town of Carema, located in the upper Canavese area. As of today, this cooperative has more than 100 members, of which nearly 75 grow and contribute grapes (Carema DOC, 2023).

The members are all part-time producers, whose average age varies widely (from 20 to 85). This type of viticulture is called heroic, because its interpreters cultivate about 15 hectares of vineyards organized in dry sloping terraces , located on hillsides that can exceed even 30 percent slope. The terracing system has ancient origins in the Carema DOC area , it is thought to have been present as early as Roman times in order to take full advantage of the sunniest slopes, those that are used today, however, were built in the early 19th century.

The terroir of these soils consists of fill soil of morainic origin, thus and poor and acidic, composed mainly of sand (80%). Nebbiolo is mainly grown in Carema, whose vines coexist in this foodscapes with fruit trees and cereals, all cultivated on terraces called muraje, from which solid three-meter-high lime hills, called pilun, empty out, supporting the pergola(topia). These structures are able to absorb heat during the day and release it during the night so as to promote the slow ripening of the grapes (Manna, 2024).

The specifications for Carema DOC were established in 1967 and include wines produced from 300 to 750 m asl. Initially they were made only from Nebbiolo grapes, but in 1998 they were allowed to use 15 percent of other red grapes as well, and the terms Riserva, which requires the wine to have at least 36 months of aging, and Classico, which includes at least 24 months of aging, were also added. However, the cooperative produces only two Carema DOC labels, which are a basic “Etichetta Nera” and a Riserva “Etichetta Bianca.”

In 2014 Carema was recognized as a Slow Food Presidium to protect its wholeness and uniqueness. Such a product can only exist in that particular place because it is intimately linked to the land where it is produced. Man, mountain and vine coexist as one, making the final product irreproducible elsewhere. Throughout the centuries, man has been able to shape such an impervious landscape thanks to terracing, which today is indispensable to prevent hydrogeological disruption and creates ideal microclimates for vines. This is an example of sustainable coexistence, resulting in the creation of virtuous enterprises such as the cooperative under analysis, which continue to exist only thanks to thecollective efforts of the entire farming community (Slow Food Foundation, 2025).

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