Cascina Tavijn 'Ruschena' Ruche 2021

Press 4 Mix/Red • May 2024 Direct Press Selection

"I'm not sure why you carry my wines, we have all the faults: Brett, volatile acidity, carbon dioxide, residual sugar, mouse..." This was the self-effacing statement Nadia Verrua of Cascina Tavijn floated to me when I visited her in 2022. She's right—her wines often have many of the above issues. But they are nevertheless charming and heartwarming, never boring. She has built a very loyal following of natural wine lovers around the world by sticking to her zero/zero approach when others would have long ago succumbed to the venal sin of adding sulfur to clean things up. 

Part of the appeal of her style is that there is little changed from the way her father, Ottavio, and generations before him made wine for the locals, mostly in glass demijohns. Today they use some larger fiberlass tanks, but little else in the cellar would suggest the 21st century. On the other hand, Nadia upended the traditional patriachal order when she finally convince her father to include her in the farming and winemaking after returning home at age 23. Nadia didn't venture afar to learn winemaking from experts with chemistry degrees, she is upholding a long tradition of rustic winemaking that is unashamedly arresting and proudly feral.

She works about seven hectares in Monferrato and focuses on local varities like Barbera, Grignonlio, or Ruché, the obscure Piedmont grape featured in this varietal wine. It's wild and spicy with some barnyard notes, grippy blueberry skin, and sage. Chewy, complex, and herbaceous, it's not shy but brimming with the exuberance and unpredictability of life itself. Pair it with wild boar sausage or pasta with some tomato, guanciale, Pecorino, and black pepper. Jonathan Kemp