This grape variety of very limited diffusion (it is grown in seven municipalities in the province of Asti) owes its present notoriety to two illustrious inhabitants of Castagnole Monferrato: Don Giacomo Cauda, the parish priest who in the late seventies fervently devoted himself to the production of Ruch, and the Mayor Lidia Bianco, who struggled so as the DOC was awarded to the small vine, that was obtained in 1987 (in 2001 to Ruch was even awarded the DOCG). The etymology is uncertain, as the toponymy of the place does not mention even in ancient times a name similar to Ruch. A school of thought, however, has a propensity for a link with the presence in Portacomaro of a Benedictine church dedicated to San Rocco, while others believe that the name could have been derived from rocks, steep and parched by the sun hills where this wine give its best expressions.
