Vietti Barolo 2022
£56.45
The wine
The estate Barolo, drawn from vineyards across the commune and a fine measure of the house style. A classic, rich and opulent Barolo, with seductive notes of plum, red, black and sour cherry, and the characteristic rose petal and tobacco through to a leathery finish.
Blending across several villages is the older Barolo tradition, and it survives here alongside the crus rather than beneath them: fruit from different exposures and soils, assembled for balance rather than to express one hillside. Nebbiolo is a demanding grape, late to ripen and high in both acid and tannin, which is why Barolo requires a minimum of thirty-eight months of ageing before release. This is the wine to start with if the crus are unfamiliar.
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.
