Beneath Canelli runs a maze of galleries branching out for kilometres: these are the historic sparkling wine cellars, what people here call the underground cathedrals, which UNESCO has placed on the world heritage list along with the town and the Asti wine zone. The cellars of Casa Gancia are the largest piece of this system, with an underground route of over four kilometres.
What to see
The galleries were cut in past centuries into calcareous tufa, a natural thermal insulator: inside, the temperature stays constant between 12 and 14 degrees, the right condition for the millions of bottles left to ferment to take on the aromas of sparkling wine. They are feats of engineering before they are feats of wine architecture, and you only grasp that by going down: from above, the town gives no hint of how much emptiness lies beneath.
Visiting
The historic cellars are visited by appointment, contacting Casa Gancia. Above the galleries stands the castle of Canelli, also called castello Gancia: it was built in the eleventh century to defend the roads leading from the town to the ports of Savona and Vado Ligure, destroyed in 1617 during the war against Montferrat and rebuilt in 1930 by the architect Arturo Midana as an elegant villa. It belongs to the Vallarino Gancia family.
Our editors' tip
It is worth knowing that these cellars also have a history of disasters: the flood of 1994 filled the galleries with mud and water and destroyed much of the sparkling wine then fermenting. The Belbo, which runs on the surface, is the reason for Canelli's fortune and now and then its most direct threat.