In 2007 the artist Willem Sanders and his wife, Yvonne Sanders-Hardenberg,

employed by the University of Amsterdam, decided to move from their home in Amsterdam to an old farmhouse in the Alta Langa, Piemonte, Italy.

The purchase of the farm made a long-cherished dream come true. After many exhibitions, study trips and holidays, we had found a place to live in the country that had always enchanted us.

A farmhouse with an architecture from the past, built in the typical local stone, Pietra della Langa, ideally situated almost at the top of a valley between the hills.

In fact, the location of the farmhouse is so strategic that it was used as a lookout post by the partisans during World War II.

The Bormida valley region is know for its terraces on which the Dolcetto grape was cultivated until the 1980s.

The phenomenon of ageing and the related depopulation led to the disappearance of this cultivation, which was largely replaced by planting nut trees.

However, the microclimate and the terraces with their stone walls still afford an ideal situation to produce wine again!

The name of the vineyard is derived from our two surnames:

SAND&BERG

Of course, it is appropriate that our vineyard is located on a hill (berg in Dutch), and that the grape vines have their own terroir.

Moreover, the name also refers to art and its history (Willem Sandberg was director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam from 1945 to 1963).

With Sand&Berg we not only produce our own Pinot Noir, but we have also initiated two projects,

THE PAINTED GRAPE  and THE PROMISING GRAPE

to create a context and an aesthetic framework in which a synergy takes place between the art of making wine and that of making a work of art.