Barbaresco

The 2011 vintage is the first release of the Minuto family’s Barbaresco Asili, from their tiny handkerchief square of vines (0.6 hectares), comprising 55-year-old vines. There is more sand in Asili, contributing a fine texture, along with mentholated, ripe, small, strawberry fruit. It's so pretty, so suave, with impeccable lines, and quasi-perfect balance; a joy, but still in its relative youth. It should age beautifully if you can wait. 

One of the oldest, and finest Barbaresco estates, Cascina Luisin is located close to the village itself, overlooking its prime vineyard of Rabajà. Son Roberto is gradually filling the shoes of his father Luigi Minuto: there has been a renovation of the large oak botti, with Austrian Stockinger oak, along with a new family reserves cellar for all those magnificent old bottles. Alongside the pretty Barbaresco Paolin and more structured Rabajà, this year we are offering the first release of their old-vine Asili.

Lustrous mid ruby. Quite intense nose of red fruit and oak and perfectly integrated. Still quite closed and backward on the palate with bags of powdery tannins. Powerful structure on the finish. Very long and balanced, yet undeniably oaky for the moment.
Walter Speller - jancisrobinson.com, Oct 2016

Round, supple and succulent, the 2011 Costa Russi is laced with dark red cherry, plum, mocha, cloves and new leather. The classic Costa Russi personality comes through in a soft, gracious wine with tons of near and medium-term appeal. The Costa Russi captures an attractive middle ground between the ripe, pliant style of the year and the medium bodied grace of Nebbiolo. I expect the 2011 will offer a long and broad drinking window of pure pleasure. Although Costa Russi is often the most precocious of Gaja's single-vineyard wines, it is the last site to be picked.
Antonio Galloni, Vinous, October 2014

Just mid ruby with orange tinges. A little more fruit driven than the straight Barbaresco. Cherry and raspberry with a cool edge to it and the merest suggestion of oak. Beautiful, supple, mid-weight palate of red fruit, and complemented with quite demanding tannins, at least for the moment. Precise.
Walter Speller - jancisrobinson.com, Oct 2016

The grapes for Gaja's flagship Barbaresco are sourced from 14 unique vineyard sites across Barbaresco. The wine spends an average of 12 months in barriques followed by 12 months in large wooden casks. A very elegant wine which ages well, it can be appreciated within a few years of bottling.
David Berry Green

An 8 acre vineyard was bought by the Gaja family in 1934 and sits on a hilltop with southern exposure. Named after Angelo’s grandmother it produces a wine of matchless elegance and power; full, rich, structured and with an enormous weight of ripe fine fruits.

This wine is effectively the ‘Ca d’Morissio’ of the Roagna ‘stable’: combining power, grace and longevity.  Located just below the Roagna cantina itself, up on the left, in the heart of the village of Barbaresco, Crichët boasts the Pajé vineyard’s oldest vines, all grassed over, that serve up pitifully small (Michet?) bunches of great natural concentration.

Unsurprisingly Luca and Alfredo only make c. 2000 bottles of this wine a year; the 2004 was aged for 8 years in large oak prior to bottling. I was fortunate to try the 2004 vintage on two occasions in spring/summer 2013. It was a classic vintage, in the mould of 1982, ’88, ’96…with decades ahead of it.

Tasted in June2013  the wine struck me for its herbal aromatics, iron-fisted power, strident character, while in July it showed a meatier side, still very serious, refusing to reveal itself, with a deep-seated, rosemary scented brooding persona.  The 2001 tasted alongside seemed more succulent and slight by comparison, while the 1982 remains totally fresh and pinpoint.
David Berry Green

 Luca Roagna only started vinifying this tiny wedge of a 50 yo vineyard separately in 2004. The last to be picked, it undergoes a 50 day maceration in oak to produce, even in the shy 2005 vintage, a wine of great profundity, with a sweet core of fruit and elegance.
(David Berry Green)

Bought straight from Punset’s cantina overlooking Neive, Marina’s 2004 Barbaresco San Cristoforo ‘Campo Quadro’ perfectly reflects this classic, slow-developing Nebbiolo vintage. It was a textbook season, coming after the baked 2003, with rain at regular intervals, giving classically ‘shaped’ Barbareschi and Baroli.

As you would hope this wine, the top of her range, commands a wonderful presence, with delicate tea leaf and almost iron-like depth. Clos de Vougeot-esque? It’s certainly very assured, complete, with a deep garnet colour, and generous with constant, savoury, salato (salty) red fruit. Very impressive, with beef. 
David Berry Green

There is no mistaking the charmingly gentle, broad fleshy appeal of his Pajé wine from the two hectare single vineyard below his home in Barbaresco. It is so pure and delicate, with beautifully ripe tannins, pretty red fruit and a modest 13.5% alcohol. This is very much the family’s signature Barbaresco that can be appreciated relatively young, especially in this charming vintage.
(David Berry Green)

Subtle aromas of rose and blackberry follow through to a full body, with fine tannins and a fresh finish. Unfolds on the palate. Layered and beautiful. Refined yet structured.
Wine Spectator - 30 Sept 2008

Vintage 1998 was as focused & bright as elsewhere in northern Europe; very different from the sun-baked 1997s & fuller bodied, structured 1999s.

Tasted in July 2013 at the cantina prior to buying, the 1998 Pajé Riserva proved such a pretty wine, with delicate, bright lines; the epitome of fine Barbaresco, fine-boned and slender. No doubt on account of the vintage the wine retains a cool, fresh-face, tight lines and with plenty of liveliness; it remains amazingly young and present. Delicious now, drinking from 2013 to 2020.
David Berry Green 

This is made with 55-year-old vine fruit from an exquisite site, right in the heart of a natural amphitheatre close to the village of Barbaresco itself, the soil rich in chalk. Blood-red colour, the nose seduces, as always, with gorgeous, sweet raspberry, kirsch cassis, a hedonistic, velvety texture – held tight with sinewy structure. The palate swells with sumptuous fruit, yet it is chalky and pure, sensational, with such detail – brimming with superlatives.

The father and son team of Alfredo and Luca Roagna are celebrating the completion of their new cantina in Castiglione Falletto, in the heart of La Pira vineyard, a prime location they’ve owned since 1989, but had bought fruit from since the 1950s. Both in their Barolo and Barbaresco estates (15 hectares in total), they pride themselves on their organic, grassed-over vineyards. They’re fortunate to have a wealth of oldvine fruit at their disposal which, of course, they vinify traditionally with extended maceration in large oak barrels.

The estate's most prized wine comes from a perfectly situated 0.52-hectare corner of the Pajé vineyard in the village of Barbaresco, whose old-vine fruit somehow conjures a wine of unbelievable beauty – especially with the superlative 2006 vintage behind it. In a word, sensational; this has cool raspberry and mulberry, the fruit's natural expression undimmed by eight years’ élévage. It seems to possess the same profound, deeprooted complexity enjoyed by the likes of Monfortino; yet it's more porcelain, more delicate and ethereal given its Barbaresco (and Roagna) DNA. Rose-water pure, with such harmony and purity, this is ‘drop-dead' gorgeous.

The father and son team of Alfredo and Luca Roagna are celebrating the completion of their new cantina in Castiglione Falletto, in the heart of La Pira vineyard, a prime location they’ve owned since 1989, but had bought fruit from since the 1950s. Both in their Barolo and Barbaresco estates (15 hectares in total), they pride themselves on their organic, grassed-over vineyards. They’re fortunate to have a wealth of oldvine fruit at their disposal which, of course, they vinify traditionally with extended maceration in large oak barrels.

At only 1.83 hectares, the Roagna family's plot of Pajé still represents nearly 50 percent of the entire surface of this fine Barbaresco vineyard. Close to the Tanaro river flowing by, refreshing the vines with cooling air currents, the chalky character of Pajé’s soil is expressed through its soft, red colour, a dreamy nose of peachy, red fruit, of charmingly pure, effortless, firm but fine fruit tannins, and an enchanting scent throughout.

The father and son team of Alfredo and Luca Roagna are celebrating the completion of their new cantina in Castiglione Falletto, in the heart of La Pira vineyard, a prime location they’ve owned since 1989, but had bought fruit from since the 1950s. Both in their Barolo and Barbaresco estates (15 hectares in total), they pride themselves on their organic, grassed-over vineyards. They’re fortunate to have a wealth of oldvine fruit at their disposal which, of course, they vinify traditionally with extended maceration in large oak barrels.

Only about 1,500 bottles were made from Roagna's south-west-facing plot that adjoins that of Bruno Giacosa. The sandy talc element of the calcareous soil gives an intriguing clementine-skin character, along with rose-petal purity. Crunchy-cool poise, packed with harmonious detail, a glint of kirsch cassis and red cherry-stone, impeccably dressed; it sets the pulse racing.

The father and son team of Alfredo and Luca Roagna are celebrating the completion of their new cantina in Castiglione Falletto, in the heart of La Pira vineyard, a prime location they’ve owned since 1989, but had bought fruit from since the 1950s. Both in their Barolo and Barbaresco estates (15 hectares in total), they pride themselves on their organic, grassed-over vineyards. They’re fortunate to have a wealth of oldvine fruit at their disposal which, of course, they vinify traditionally with extended maceration in large oak barrels.

Also produced in tiny quantities, as all Roagna old-vine wines naturally are, the Pajé version remains true to the bright, cherry-red intensity of the denominazione (versus the paler colour for Barolo): it's open-hearted, engaging with joyful tea-leaf freshness, fabulous tension, fleet of foot, with ballerina poise and balance – a pearl of sweet red cassis.

The father and son team of Alfredo and Luca Roagna are celebrating the completion of their new cantina in Castiglione Falletto, in the heart of La Pira vineyard, a prime location they’ve owned since 1989, but had bought fruit from since the 1950s. Both in their Barolo and Barbaresco estates (15 hectares in total), they pride themselves on their organic, grassed-over vineyards. They’re fortunate to have a wealth of oldvine fruit at their disposal which, of course, they vinify traditionally with extended maceration in large oak barrels.

A real triumph: this has elegant, cool, red fruit with notes of mint and coffee on the nose. It is sumptuous and mouth-filling, yet still retaining amazing elegance and coolness. Terrifically complex with notes of red summer fruits, grilled meats, smoke, chocolate and herbs among many others. The finish is long and fine.