Michele Chiarlo Barbaresco Reyna 2023
£36.75
The wine
An elegant, refined Barbaresco of garnet colour, delivering delicate and complex aromas with ethereal notes of rose petals and tea layered upon small red berried fruits. Silky and beautifully balanced on the palate, with soft, fine tannins and remarkable length.
Barbaresco is Nebbiolo grown a little lower and warmer than Barolo, closer to the Tanaro, and requires twenty-six months of ageing against Barolo's thirty-eight. The wines are typically approachable earlier while giving up nothing in perfume. Reyna draws on sites within the Barbaresco commune and shows the appellation's characteristic rose and red-cherry lift.
The producer
Michele Chiarlo
View all Michele Chiarlo winesFounded at Calamandrana in 1956 and now run by Michele Chiarlo's sons Alberto and Stefano, this is one of Piedmont's most decorated houses. Michele himself came from a family of growers in the Monferrato and built the estate outward from Barbera country into the great Nebbiolo hills.
The family hold parcels in two of the finest Barolo crus, Cannubi and Cerequio, and in La Court at Nizza, the small appellation carved out of Barbera d'Asti in 2014 for its best hillside sites. Every vineyard is farmed sustainably to Equalitas certification. The house philosophy is that oak should be used judiciously so the vineyard speaks first, which in Piedmont has not always been the fashion.
Chiarlo has also done more than most to argue that Barbera deserves serious treatment rather than being the grape Piedmont drinks while waiting for its Nebbiolo. The Barolo and Barbera wines draw 90-plus scores from Wine Advocate, James Suckling and Wine Enthusiast year after year, and in 2025 Michele Chiarlo was named European Producer of the Year at the Sommelier Wine Awards.
