The Man Who Kept His Day Job
Luciano Sandrone's father and grandfather were carpenters. No one in the family had ever made wine.
Luciano started at fourteen, working in someone else's cellar — first at Giacomo Borgogno in La Morra, a winemaker with no male heirs who invited the boy in and taught him everything he knew, then as cellarmaster at Marchesi di Barolo, where he stayed for twenty years, learning the institution from the inside while quietly building something of his own on the outside.
In 1977, he spent everything he had on twelve rows of vines in Cannubi Boschis. He made his first 1,500 bottles in 1978. He kept his job at Marchesi di Barolo. He kept it for twelve more years — making wine on nights and weekends, building something in parallel with the life that paid his bills — until 1990, when he finally trusted what he had built enough to let go of the safety net.
I heard this story not from Barbara, who was ill that week, but from Lucia — the woman who shows visitors around the estate with the quiet authority of someone who has told the story many times and still believes every word of it. She walked me through the cellar Luciano built directly opposite Cannubi Boschis, so he could look up at the hill he had once bought with everything he had.
In 2013, he renamed his most celebrated wine. Not after the vineyard. After his grandchildren — Alessia and Stefano, Ale and Ste, Aleste. The most commercially valuable label in his cellar, carrying two children's names instead of a cru.
A carpenter's son. Twelve rows. Twelve years of a double life. Then a grandchild's name on the bottle instead of the hill.
Luciano Sandrone founded his estate in 1978. He passed away in January 2023. The work continues.
SANDRONE LUCIANO ssa
Via Pugnane 4
12060 Barolo · Italia
