2019 Massolino Barolo

WINEMAKER: Franco & Roberto Massolino and Giovanni Angeli
REGION: Piedmont, IT
VARIETY: Nebbiolo
VITICULTURE: Organic

First produced in 1911, the fruit for Massolino’s classic cuvée is selected from seven sites across roughly seven hectares of prime-sited Serralunga vineyards. The most important of these sites—Briccolina, Collareto, Broglio and Le Turne—are dotted around the town itself (Le Turne borders Margheria, while Collareto lies next to Vigna Rionda)—so we are talking quality real estate. The 2019 also includes a little declassified fruit from Massolino’s Parussi Cru. Vine age varies from 10 to 55 years.

This is the second year that Massolino’s Barolo wines were fermented in large wooden casks, or tini (previously the wines were fermented in concrete). While the Cru wines below are now fermented exclusively in oak—which Giovanni Angeli credits with imparting even more finesse—half of this Barolo was still fermented in concrete. This cuvée spent around 20 days on skins and the final blend was matured for 30 months in large Slavonian oak casks. As always, a wonderful value.

The high-altitude chalky hillsides of Serrralunga d’Alba, on the eastern edge of the Barolo DOCG, produce some of the most profound and long-lived Barolo wines. It is the home of great names such as Giacomo Conterno and Bruno Giacosa’s Falletto vineyard. The wines often have an extra stuffing of intense Nebbiolo fruit as well as a remarkable minerality that plays on both the freshness of the tannins and gives the wines a certain ferrous edge when young. Massolino’s Barolos sit comfortably among the finest of the region—they are wines of wonderful purity and elegance. The wines have earned an immaculate reputation in Australia, and deservedly so.