History of the Vacca family
This story began in 1958. Assisted by his wife, Francesca, Francesco Vacca, Saverio’s grandfather, began growing grapes and producing small quantities of wine in his cascina farmhouse at the foot of the Ovello hill in Barbaresco.
Francesco, known to friends as ‘Cichin’, a dialect nickname, was a tall, proud man with the aristocratic air of many of the Langa’s Grand Old Men. His two main passions were the production of wine and wood sculpture, to both of which he brought the same extraordinary creative verve.
In his vineyards, Francesco nurtured the vines to produce the grand, traditional wines of the region. In his little artisan’s workshop, he sculpted wood to produce figurative pieces, but especially the traditional ox yoke used by contadini farmers to yoke their animals singly or in pairs to the plough. For feast days,when the oxen would parade through the village square, the yokes used were intricately carved and decorated.
Francesca helped her husband in the vineyards and in the wine cellar and, from the 1960s onwards, their son Mario joined the family firm, developing and enlarging it.
In 1958, with farsighted courage, the family participated in the founding of the Barbaresco Cooperative, which helped define the qualities of the wine and its vineyards and united the producers in a single group. The Vacca winery, a founding member, is still part of the association, although generations have come and gone and the winery is now run by Francesco’s grandson, Saverio.