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Set on the sunny-drenched hills of the Gavi district, among vineyards surrounded by oak, cherry, false acacia and chestnut woods, on the route of the most famous wines of the area known as Monferrato Piemonte, the Rugrà farm, a family-run structure, covers an estate of 5 hectars (2,5 of vineyards) and is supervised personally by its owner, Luigia Zucchi. She started in 1997, after years of honey-bee keeping and wine-making as a hobby, and has always practised organic farming methods, using only copper, sulphur and medical herbs, aiming at the maintenance of the earth life and balance through green fertilization like ploughing in and organic and mineral amendments.

Born in the country and working in a big city like Milan, she has always remained faithful to the country and all her family has devoted their time out of work, to the country, as honey-bee keepers, and in their vegetables garden and small vineyard. Their main concern was a healthy life, the opportunity of eating organic products.

Finally she made her choice to work full time in the vineyard an in the cellar in 1997 with occasional help from outside apart from her family.

In the vineyards organic farming methods have remained, avoiding the use of chemical products and pesticides, only copper and sulphur are used to prevent vine disease .

Mechanization and herbs extracts are used to face problems with weeds or parassites and letame (mure) as fertilisation while techniques like reducing pruning, adequate thinning out of the grapes and harvesting at complete ripeness are followed to aim at high quality.

Wine-making in the cellar combines tradition and modern technology: with a soft grape-processing; use of organic yeast, controlled temperature fermentation in stainless steel tanks to prevent fermentation stoppages or unrequired microbic development. Sulphites are used for aged wines, not for the PRUNO ROSSO that is bottled a year after grape-picking The other red wines are refined in oak barrels the last 2 years before bottling.

The percentage of SO2 used to preserve the wine is lower than the amount allowed according to the standard of organic wine production