In the heart of the hilly landscape where the Langhe and Monferrato wine regions meet, Paolo Berta started a distillery in 1947. Over time, talent and visions have become a leading exponent of an elegant, modern and fruity version of grappa through hard work.
The distillery moved a little further east, from Nizza Monferrato to Casalotto di Mombaruzzo in 2002, where the Berta family opened a state-of-the-art production facility and a museum of the distillery’s ancient art: the Museo dell’Antica Arte della Distillazione.
Distilleria Berta is still a family business, long run by two brothers, but now the company is run by the extremely colorful Enrico Berta, who handles the commercial side of the case, with brother Gianfranco, who also served as maestro distillatory, sadly dying in 2015.
Grappa production is most crucial about the interaction between a distiller, the distillation apparatus and the right grape vase. At Berta, one swears by steam distillation to extract and concentrate what is found in the raw material, the grape vase or in Italian: Vinaccia. The importance of the quality of the kvass is difficult to overestimate, and Berta’s approach helps explain both the success of the distillates and the style of the house with very fruity, aromatic grappa, that is not as strict, raw and rustic as the traditional interpretations.
Berta pays its suppliers to “soft-press” the fermented grape vase to leave extra moist. It packs quickly in barrel-shaped, airtight 200-liter plastic containers that effectively prevent the harmful oxygen decomposition of the kvass. In this, the kvass is both transported and stored right up to the distillation process itself.