Though the first bottling of their Barolo Briccolina was of vintage 2012 (in July 2015), the Grasso family of Azienda Agricola La Briccolina have occupied the spectacular bricco of this vineyard in the high part of Serralunga d’Alba, at 350 metres asl, lying adjacent to Ornato & beyond Falletto, since 1922; indeed the cascina looks west (the vines SW) straight across the valley to Elio Grasso’s winery & borgata, from where the family ‘migrated’! The intervening 90 years have been spent selling off fruit to a more famous neighbour, while Tiziano worked at Fontanafredda.
Simona, Tiziano’s wife, also has contadina roots; her family coming from Dogliani. But it was Tiziano’s son Daniele, who works by day at Bataisolo, who spurred the family on to bottle their own fruit from the finest 0.4ha (out of a total 5.5ha) of 50yo vines rather than give it all away. A new cantina has been fitted out in the ancient cellar beneath the family house; the vinification a classic c. 20 day s/s & botte grande (Garbellotto). The first CLC cement tank arrived earlier this year to house the wine prior to bottling. For now they make just the one wine, Barolo Briccolina.
Now, without Tiziano by their side, it is Simona & Dany who must take this great little cantina forward.
This jewel of a Brunello di Montalcino estate was first planted in 1978 by Federigo Abbarchi and Angela Corioni on marne and iron-rich red silt soils at 450 msl on the north-western corner of Montalcino; bottling beginning in 1982 under the eye of Giulio Gambelli. Meanwhile Loredana Tanganelli, the daughter of Montalcino’s postino (postman) & current custodian of the Scopetone estate, was either just being born or was soon to embark on a career in carpentry & apiary, before planting some vines in Montecucco, near Porrona, during the early 2000s.
In 2003 Loredana the apiarist met Antonio Brandi the zafferano farmer from nearby San Quirico, & they planted some more vines together. Daughter Giada was born on 15 January 2005.
Skip to 2009 when Loredana & Antonio started to rent the 1.5ha gem of a Scopetone estate from Angela Corioni, adding 1.5ha of their own land. Now they farm 5ha, with the Montalcino vineyards at between 450 – 480 metres asl. Located high up but below the town’s walls on predominantly cool red Chestnut tree soils along with some galestro, their tiny patch of heaven gazes west, so retaining freshness & poise. Their perfumed, relatively delicate wines are sensitively and traditionally made using stainless-steel and 33hl Pauscha Austrian oak botte.
> Essentially organic but will resort to chemicals if absolutely necessary.
In the southern-western corner of Sardinia lie the former coal fields of Carbonia. Closer to the coast the carbon land is covered by sand, and to free-standing, ungrafted, unirrigated Carignano vines that yield a naturally small crop of compact bunches, rich with sweet juice. It’s also home to the Esu family, custodians of Carignano, at their Carbonia estate.
Enrico Esu family were originally pastori/shepherds, who in the Sardinian tradition, created family settlements called ‘medau’, along with vineyards. Both the Pheonicians & Romans planted coastal footholds on the island, notably at Sulcis & Sant’Antioco, but never conquered the indigenous people who lived inland. Enrico’s father Silvio – whom he refers to as a cross between a farmer and a miner – planted their 10 hectares of Carignano (aka Mazuelo) back in 1958. It’s a grape first propagated by the (Spanish) Bourbons during their four-hundred-year occupation of the island between the 14th and 18th century; indeed Carignano was originally known as ‘Axina de Spagna’.
Compared to the more commercially, volume driven neighbors reliant on spalliera/rows, vine clones & vigorous rootstocks that gave Carignano a bad name, the Esu family treasured the original, ancient, ‘alberello’ ungrafted/piede franco vines, with their loose bunches and look to perpetuate them on account of their excellent fruit.
Following years of selling the (prized) fruit off, Enrico decided in 2013 to make the switch to bottling the wine under the estate label ‘Nerominiera’, so honouring the presence of the now silent coal mines & the men who worked in them. Vinified without oak, at the local cantina sociale (cooperative), Enrico made only 5000 bottles of his inaugural bottling’. From 2015, he began vinifying in his cantina (close to the family’s ‘Medau’) & released the first vintage of ‘Seruci’ Carignano del Sulcis Riserva, from 1958-planted ungrafted vines; ‘Seruci’ being the name of the mine where his father worked his final shift.
> Organic, uncertified.
Born only in 2012 the Trediberri cantina of La Morra pulls together three Piedmontesi (Nicola Oberto & his father Federico and their associate Vladimiro Rambaldi) who’ve invested in 5ha of Berri vineyards, a hamlet of La Morra, back in 2008.
Nicola is a recent graduate of Milan’s Bocconi University, former Merrill Lynch staff, a statistician and a passionate advocate and lover of fine wine. Father Federico has spent forty years working for a local, large Barolo producer, while Nebbiolo enthusiast Vladimiro runs a bank. There’s an important fourth person, Anna Rosa Oberto (mother/wife) who tends the vines fastidiously when not working at the local post office.
In addition to the 5ha, the Oberto family have 2ha of one of the Langhe’s top vineyards: Rocche dell’Annunziata; located in the very heart of the vineyard. Indeed their new winery in the Borgata of Torriglione overlooks the vineyard. Guided by Anna Rosa, they follow a low impact, organic approach to viticulture, while the wines are made traditionally with extended macerations & large oak ageing.
Vintage 2015 Barolo was aged in three new 52Hl botti Garbellotto grandi, alongside an older 48HL one; Rocche dell’Annunziata is aged in one 25HL. From vintage 2017, the Langhe Nebbiolo incorporates fruit from Livio’s Alta Langa 3ha Levice vineyard (for freshness). From 2018, the Oberto family will have regained possession of their full 1.4ha Rocche dell’Annunziata vineyard, with vines back to 1951. In 2019 they’re building a new bottle storage area, & in the same year they’ll be producing – harvest allowing – their first Dolcetto d’Alba from the alta Langa comune of Vicoforte!
> Certified organic since 2015.
Luca Roagna represents the latest generation to work in this historical wine estate, alongside his genial father Alfredo, whose 15 hectares of vine cover both Barabresco and Barolo wine production. However the family’s roots lie in Barbaresco, with Luca’s grandfather buying the Paje vineyard in the 1950s.
The key to understanding Roagna’s wine is their insistence upon biodiverse masale selected and old vineyards (up to 100 year-old in the case of Castiglione Falletto), whose plants are only green harvested up to 15 yo (older vines set their own yields naturally). Harvests tend to be more protracted than their neighbours, while cuvaisons in large conical French Garbellotto botte also outstrip the norm, lasting anything from one to two months, achieving the finest tannins and maximum extraction. The use of sulphur dioxide is minimal if applied at regular intervals. They follow organic principles.
The range is dominated by three Barbaresco crus: Paje, Crichet Paje and Paje Riserva; the difference being the exposition and vine age. Not afraid to innovate, since 1982 they have also offered an ingenious non-vintage, vino di tavola blend of (Barbaresco) Nebbiolo called ‘Opera Prima’ and since ’88 a minerally white Chardonnay/Nebbiolo blend named ‘Solea’.
From Barolo’s Castiglione Falletto village comes their monopole ‘Pira’ cru. Production is small.
> Organic, uncertified.
Hidden away in the little known Barbaresco village of San Rocco Seno d’Elvio, just outside Alba, is the single plot of 4 hectares (of Nebbiolo, Barbera & Dolcetto) farmed by Manuel Marinacci. A mere 1.5 ha of which lies in the Barbaresco MGA of Rocche Massalupo.
Manuel’s a young wine producer whose biggest claim to fame to date is as a class-mate of Giuseppe Mascarello at Alba’s viticultural school Umberto 1, which he left in the mid 1990s. Upon graduation Manuel worked abroad & locally for both large and small cantine/wineries before taking on the lease of the San Rocco Seno d’Elvio vineyard in 2002. Vintage 2004 was his first release. Manuel makes three wines: Dolcetto d’Alba, Barbera d’Alba and Barbaresco. Refreshingly Manuel immediately adopted the traditional approach to winemaking; Giuseppe’s influence perhaps rubbing off on him! His Nebbiolo for Barbaresco is vinified in either fibre-glass or cement without temperature control using selected or wild yeast. As he explains: ‘as a two-man operation I need the comfort of knowing that the ferments will happen when I’m away from the cantina’.
The Barbaresco is then aged in large slavonian botte for two years. Importantly he only vinifies that which is going into bottle with his name on it (rather than making wine out of all the crop and selling off any surplus as bulk wine); the rest is sold as fruit. So currently production of Barbaresco is at a third of capacity, circa 500 cases per annum. The style of Manuel’s wines are grounded in tradition, showing a kirsch purity & minerality normally associated with the comune of Treiso above.
From 2017, his Barbaresco will feature the MGA/vineyard name of (Vigna) Rocche Massalupo.
> Converting to organic. Bottling at 60mg/litro total & 30mg/litro free sulphur.
The son of a teacher from the ‘borgata’/hamlet of Albesani, close to the Barbaresco village of Neive, young Francesco Versio graduated in 2005 from Alba’s Umberto 1 wine school & in 2009 from Turin University, specialising in viti & viniculture. He worked briefly at the cooperative Terre di Barolo before joining Bruno Giacosa first as a cellarman & then as their oenologist in June 2011.
His family own a tiny property of two small plots of old vines in the ‘comune’ of Neive: one in the vineyard of San Cristoforo, planted in 1969; the other, Currà, even older, lies below San Cristoforo. Both face south-west & overlook the village of Barbaresco; both were rented out until 2012. The ‘terreno’ of San Cristoforo is more calcareo/calcareous, giving freshness & perfume; that of Currà is more sabbioso/sandier, imparting a warm softness to the wine.
In 2013 Francesco made only 20HL (2,600 bts) of his first Barbaresco from their two vineyards, at a yield of circa 30HL/ha, in the basement cellar of this parents’ house. He spent his earnings on a new temperature-controlled stainless-steel tank – the controlling element to be used only in emergency – & a large Stockinger botte grande. Vinification is traditional, with long macerations on the skins when the vintage allows; the wines always being bottled with approx. 25 mg of free sulphur.
The 2014 vintage, produced from fruit from Neive’s San Cristoforo vineyard, was down by 50% due to the vintage & because he replanted the Currà vineyard (with 60% Lampia, 30% Michet & 10% Picotener). Vintage 2015 was also made from the single, calcareous San Cristoforo vineyard. From vintage 2016 Francesco has bought fruit from a nearby Neive vineyard, Tetti/Cotta.
In 2017 he took on a small ESE vineyard in Borgata Pamparato, between Dogliani & Belvedere Langhe, at 500m asl, from which he is making Dogliani DOCG & perhaps in due course some Langhe Nebbiolo…plans are also afoot to invest in another botte grande & cement tank!
His 2019 Barbaresco will be a Neive village blend of San Cristoforo, Currà, & (for the first time) Starderi!
Lying in the heart of one of Barolo’s most famous vineyard’s Cannubi in the village of Barolo, this small, traditional, 5th generation family-owned cantina (winery) dates back to 1897, and to Cavalier Francesco Borgogno. More recently it was his descendants, brothers Serio and Battista Borgogno who set about developing the cantina during the 1960s and ‘70s when the emphasis was largely on quantity not quality, buying in fruit/wine to fill their outsized winery. Today the baton has been passed to Serio’s daughters Anna (Bolla) and Paola (Boffa) and in turn their offspring Emanuela and Federica respectively. Anna’s husband Marco is making the wine, aided by Emanuela and since 2012 by enologo Luca Sarotto. These days the focus is increasingly on their vineyard holding of Cannubi, with plots facing south, north/east and west, while they continue to buy some fruit in for a separate white label range.
Vinification is traditional, fermenting in large wooden vats, before racking to Garbellotto and Veneto slavonian oak botte of up to 52hl for traditionally long affinamento/elevage. They also release a long aged Riserva in good years. The Dolcetto comes from their Liste vineyard in the village of Barolo.
In vintage 2018, they launched two new wines: Langhe Nascetta & Langhe Nebbiolo!
> Converting to organic.
‘Conterno’ is a surname that’s synonymous with Monforte d’Alba, & coincidentally quite a few of them are Barolo producers!
This Conterno family is related to that of Conterno-Fantino through father Diego – but unrelated when it comes to wine style! – & their new winery is ironically located just up the slope from Giacomo Conterno, of no relation. Diego, a graduate of the Umberto 1 Enological School, is well-grounded in making traditional Barolo, having worked under Beppe Colla at Prunotto. In 2000 Diego decided to sell his share of Conterno-Fantino, take his vines including the plum Ginestra plot, & started afresh.
While 2003 was their first vintage as ‘Diego Conterno’, producing all of 1300 bts of Barolo (Ginestra), the family’s history dates back to the post WWII Baroli of ancestors Lorenzo & Attilio Conterno. 2005 witnessed 100% of the estate fruit being bottled. Father & son tend the vines & make the wines; Stefano joining in 2010 – the first year their Sori Ginestra was bottled separately! Aided by a new wing to their winery in 2014, allowing them a bit more space, Diego & Stefano are making classic Monforte Barolo: static fermenters (not rotos), cement & the use of increasingly large botte grande (another two due late 2016), to give broad, brambly & minerally pure Baroli. But perhaps the winery’s greatest surprise, apart from the profondita of their Barolo Ginestra, is the pineapply Langhe Nascetta, grown on grey marl soils – rich & minerally!
Diego, his wife Anna & ‘children’ Stefano (27 & a surveyor by training) & Lorenza (now a nurse), have 7.5ha of vineyards located in the village; 2ha of which are in the ‘Grand Cru’ vineyard of Ginestra, the ‘Sori’ (full south) heart of which faces plum south at right angles to the sun & was planted in 1982. The remaining 5.5ha are split between Nebbiolo for Barolo vineyards of San Pietro, Pajana & Gris (grey in dialect on account of its fine grey marl soil); they also have Nebbiolo (d’Alba), Barbera, Dolcetto & Nascetta planted in the full west facing Ferrione vineyard below the winery itself. From vintage 2018, the family has begun renting a small parcel of Monforte Le Coste!
Since 2010 all the vineyards have been converted to organic, & certified in 2014.