Vietti Barolo Monvigliero 2019
£185.25
The wine
Monvigliero in Verduno is the great perfumed cru of Barolo, and Vietti handle it with a light touch. A Barolo of exquisite aromatic complexity and wonderful depth of flavour, with silky tannins and unmistakably elegant notes of wild strawberry, rose and dark cherry. Harmonious and beautifully balanced throughout.
Verduno is the northernmost commune of Barolo and the coolest, which is why its wines are prized for fragrance rather than force. Monvigliero is its finest slope, a steep south-facing amphitheatre that ripens fully despite the latitude. Growers here have traditionally favoured long macerations and large old casks over new oak, on the reasoning that a wine this aromatic needs nothing added to it, and Vietti follow that thinking.
The producer
Vietti
View all Vietti winesVietti is one of the defining names of Piedmont, based in the village of Castiglione Falletto at the heart of Barolo. The family have grown grapes here since the nineteenth century, but the estate as we know it was shaped by Alfredo Currado, who married Luciana Vietti in 1957 and spent the next four decades changing what Piedmont thought possible.
Two things made his name. In 1961 he bottled Barolo from the Rocche di Castiglione vineyard on its own, one of the first single-cru Barolos ever released, at a time when almost everything was blended across the commune. The idea that individual sites deserved their own bottling is now orthodoxy; then it was heresy. He also rescued Arneis, the white grape of the Roero, which had fallen to a handful of rows and was days from disappearing altogether.
The range here runs from Roero Arneis and Timorasso through Barbera and Langhe Nebbiolo to seven Barolo crus and a Barbaresco, each farmed and vinified separately. Vietti labels have carried commissioned artwork since 1974, which is why no two look quite alike.
