The Lequio family has been making excellent wines since 1850. The enterprise was formed by ancestors who settled on the top of Serragrilli hill in Neive, between the Langhe and the Monferrato, which is known for its superb wines.
In recent years, they have enlarged the area under vine by purchasing and renting vineyards in the Barolo, Roero, and Gavi regions, allowing them to offer a complete selection of Piedmontese wines to its consumers all over the world.
They maintain the family wine tradition with passion, with their husbands (Piernicola, Gianni, and Mauro). They hope that one day, the four daughters will be able to participate in everything they have accomplished thus far and help to extend it.
Today, in Italy and in particular in Piedmont /Langhe is difficult to taste bad wines, there has been a positive evolution in vineyards management and winemaking processes.
A distinction between wine producers categories :
· Pure winemakers : Usually family wineries making wines exclusively with their grapes /vineyards From the fruit to the cork. Not always all family wineries are good winemakers, but usually are not too big and are obliged to work on quality impossible to fight against mass production prices/wines.
· Coop Wineries : The name should lead to understand that all the grapes come from several associates that earn money on Tons of grapes. It’s a work of an year ! No other kind of profit. The quality is a little bit lower, because the coop winery has to “squeeze” whatever receives, but today there are many of them working seriously and making a selection of crues for top wines and keeping the rest for entry level wines.
· Bottlers : In general, their wines are cheap and for the big distribution market. The main problem for this kind of products is that the quality is not constant they do not work in vineyards, they receive only trucks of bulk wines and then make “adjustments” before bottling them. Of course the quality is lower, but usually are “well executed” wines, technically without big defects, but please, don’t “turn” the wine into the glass for hours trying to find/understand the terroir or some other scents coming from mother mature !
This is a very general description, there could be good and bad things in every category.
During the last 25 years of trips in many countries all over the world we realized that “normal” consumers do not know this difference.
Having that said, Tre Donne Winery belongs to the first one, we are the 4th generation of winemakers in Neive since 1890. All our wines come from vineyards in property and most of them are very old, from 35 years until 70 years.
Many of Tre Donne’s exceptional wines have earned awards at international contests. Looking back, they are ecstatic with the achievements they have made: the plaques, parchments, and honors they have received throughout the years. Mundus (Germany), Basel Weinmesse (Switzerland), International Wine Challenge (Ukraine), and American Wine Society are just a few examples (USA).
TRE DONNE recently participated in the JAPAN Wines & Spirits Awards 2021 and won 3 GOLD Medal Awards in this prestigious competition:
Gavi di Gavi DOCG “Donna Bianca” 2020
Awarded Gold by Business News Japan
Fermentation and aging in steel at a controlled temperature with continuous batonnage. We proceed with filtration and cold stabilization. Ready to go in the bottle in spring.
Barbera d’Alba DOC “Donna Rossa” 2019
Awarded Gold by Business News Japan
After the first fermentation of about 10 days in temperature-controlled tanks, once the malolactic process is completed, the wine passes 20% in 20 hl Slavonian oak barrels where it remains to mature for a year, the rest in steel .
Barolo DOCG “Donna Clotilde” 2017
Awarded Gold by Business News Japan
After fermentation in steel at a controlled temperature, the wine matures in 20 hl French Allier oak barrels for about 36 months. This is followed by assembly in the tank and bottling.
Interview of JAPAN Awards to Mr.Bruno Piernicola
Co-Owner / Winemaker
The Husband of Rosanna, one of the 3 sisters (Tre Donne : Rosanna, Daniela, Antonella), I come from Barolo area, bust since I’ve married her, I decided to move to Neive (Barbaresco area) to help them to expand the estate and to consolidated the brand.
Today, the 5th generation is dominated by girls who are still to young to be fully involved in the winery, let’s see what the future will reserve to us !
Question 1: Do you already export to JAPAN ? If yes, where ? If no, what type of importers & distributors are you looking for in JAPAN ?
Tre Donne Winery currently exports in Mainland China and is nationally distributed in Japan.
Question 2: What is the most unique and qualitative part of your products, different from competitors ?
What makes our wines different from many others is the female approach, elegant touch and finesse with a particular attention to nature and its rules.
Recently our estate has been accepted to be part of a project called “The Green Experience” that is a certification similar to Bio, but with more attention also to the respect of all kind of birds and insects that can naturally protect the vines from all other “negative” ones. We’ve built in vineyards many of small wooden houses for Owls, Titmouses, Sparrows, Hoopoes, Woodpeckers and also for Bats.
Question 3: When did you start to export your brand worldwide, and what is your development plan for the next years ?
We started to export our products to Japan since 2013 with a good success and our importer MEMO’s (http://memos.shop24.makeshop.jp/html/page4.html ) is a national one able to distribute our wines all over the country. Other countries apart Europe where we ship our wines are UK, USA, Canada, Brazil, Hong Kong, China, and Maldives.
There is still “room” for some other customers/countries, but with a limited availability.
What I feel to suggest to the readers is “try to be like an hunting dog” ( or a truffle dog if you are in Piemonte ), don’t taste only “super awarded wines / competition wines”, but try to discover new brands / families and who is behind that bottle.
It’s not easy, learn how to read a back label, seek on internet and you will discover an amazing world !
Thank you Mr.Bruno Piernicola for your time and answers !
To know more about TRE DONNE please visit their website : www.tredonne.it
