Starting in 1950, Mario and Teresina Sandri began making wine for personal consumption from vineyards in San Rocco Seno d’Elvio, just a few kilometers south of the then unknown village of Barbaresco. Born in 1959, their daughter Rosanna began by helping them in the vineyards and when she married Franco Prandri in 1978, he gradually began taking over most of the vineyard work, though Mario was still in the vineyards until his passing in 2013. They were farming 2.5 hectares until they added another 1.5 hectares in the early 2000s. The vines were farmed by hand, with no use of chemicals, following the natural rhythms of the weather, land and time that they had learned from her parents. Careful observation was the key to survival and they learned their trade on the ground in the field and from fellow farmers who lived in harmony with nature during this slower post WWII, pre chemical period before the wines of Barbaresco were discovered by the international wine trade. Franco looks after their 4 hectares of vines to this day and his sons Mauro & Roberto, both trained enologists, have taken on the tasks of wine-making and sales.

The hills in and around Barbaresco were created by millions of years of geological tension and movement. Geologically, the calcareous marl soils and bedrock are of Miocene origin and were formed through marine sedimentary action while what is now the Po basin was a primordial seabed. Thus, there are alternating layers of compact gray marl and sand topped off with more modern clay. It turns out that this is the magic recipe for great terroir where the Nebbiolo grape is concerned.

In the vineyards, there is complete respect for the natural biodiversity of the land, plants and air. No herbicides have ever been used in the vineyard and cover crops are actively embraced. In the winery only indigenous yeasts are used, no additives are used for fining nor stabilization (vegan), vinification takes place in concrete vats and aging happens in large wood ovals (botti).