2019 Cantina del Pino - Barbaresco (750ml)

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Cantina del Pino, led by the Vacca family, is woven into the tapestry of Barbaresco’s rich winemaking history. The estate is centered on a prime parcel of vineyards in the historic heart of Ovello – crowned by a towering pine tree (hence, ‘Pino’), planted by Domizio Cavazza 140 years ago. Over the past two plus decades, Renato Vacca produced some of the very best wines of the entire Barbaresco appellation.

For his Barbaresco normale bottling, he would gently vinify separately his different micro-plots of Ovello, Gallina, Albesani and Starderi, age them for a year, and then decide how to blend them in larger casks before bottling a year later. The diversity of his small plots with different exposures and the individual ferments by parcel allowed him to make an incredibly balanced, consistent, dialed-in normale year after year. The 2019 Barbaresco is an outstanding example of Renato’s tremendous “normale” bottling.  A very representative wine of this particularly fascinating 2019 vintage, a vintage that occurred largely in warm, solar conditions but managed to avoid overwrought flavors and ABV levels are a point to a half a point lower than they were in ’17 and ’18. You feel the ripeness and concentration of flavors in this wine, but also a great sense of balance and complexity. It’s a joy to drink now but will certainly improve and cellar for decades to come. It’s hard to believe you can buy wine like this for less than $50 per bottle.