THE FAMILY
The Lequio Family owns the Prinsi Winery, located in Neive – Piedmont, locally known as Langa (in the Barbaresco growing area).
The family has been running the business for three generations; Daniele’s grandfather Ottavio started bottling his own grapes at the end of the 1940s.
Franco, Ottavio’s son (Daniele’s father), always harbored a special connection with the land, and in 1967 – having just turned 16 – he entered the family business and decided to dedicate himself completely to wine making.
After many years of working with the valuable help of his wife Silvana, they together redefined the course the winery would take: putting plenty of time and attention into the actual growing of the grapes – which they consider the one and only starting point to make great wines and continuing their education, earning a deep knowledge of soils and grapes.
In 1999, Franco and Silvana’s son, Daniele also started working at the winery – having just finished his studies as a qualified agronomist.
Daniele is a young farmer that is passionate about his work and the Langhe area he grew up in; fully convinced of the great result that his grapes can display.
His utmost goal is to create wines to remember.
Today, as in the past, this enthusiastically dedicated family seeks to preserve the strong link with their territory and transfer this uniqueness to their wines. They’ve succeeded in establishing their wines well in the international market, creating a well-developed trading network with several European and overseas countries.
THE CELLAR
A wine is the ultimate expression of a grape varietal with respect to the territory where it was grown.
The wine reflects the same work ethic and philosophy as we go through the various processes in the wine cellar – our goal is to maintain the natural essence of the original grape.
Our cellar is the specific place where all this is performed.
The cellar is divided into four parts. It was redesigned in the 70s with a new design concept aimed at better organizing and simplifying the work flow.
During harvesting, grapes are softly pressed and destemmed. Then the must ferments in stainless steel tanks in a separate area.
After alcoholic and malolactic fermentation, younger wines that don’t need a long ageing period, remain in stainless steel vats, while the Barbera d’Alba and the Nebbiolo grapes dedicated to the Barbaresco production have proper ageing in wooden barrels and casks.
The thick walls of the refinement room, which is 100 years old, make for a perfect exemplar of natural air conditioning – great for our wines.
Barriques and wooden casks have their own specific area as well. The main reason is to allow these wines to gradually improve and express their best characteristics. We also have an area dedicated completely to storage and bottling.
Daniele takes care of the wine making and sales while his mom Silvana takes care of the winery’s hospitality.
THE VINEYARDS
The winery estate spreads over 25 hectares.
The majority of our vineyards are dedicated to Nebbiolo for our Barbaresco DOCG wines.
They cover four very important “first growth” areas inside the municipality of Neive; these are areas where the soil texture and the prime location allow us to grow top quality grapes.
They are:
Gaia Principe
Gallina
Fausoni
Basarin
Franco supervises the agronomic part and coordinates with his wife Silvana and the help of valid collaborators all necessary steps to achieve the best results.