This isn’t Italian wine partisanship talking, it’s just a fact: Barolo is the best “fine wine” value on the market (on the red side, anyway; whites are more complicated). A single-vineyard Barolo like Pira’s “Marenca” is every bit as rare and site-specific as Grand Cru Burgundy, and every bit as powerful and age-worthy as First Growth Bordeaux.
Now do some head-to-head price comparisons: Despite producing just 9,000 bottles of “Marenca” a year (less than DRC’s Grand Cru “Echézeaux” and probably what Lafite-Rothschild spills in a year), the Piras get this world-class collectible on our tables for $68. That’s why I keep banging the drum for Barolo louder than a Houston Astros assistant at a playoff game: The value proposition is unbeatable. But there’s something else, too: The wine itself is inimitable, a soul-stirring swirl of fruit, flowers, and earth that has only just begun to reveal its greatness. The Marenca
cru is in Serralunga d’Alba, the village known for the most powerful styles of Barolo, and Pira is one of only two producers to bottle a vineyard-designate wine from the site (the other is Gaja). If this isn’t a worthwhile “collectible” I don’t know what is—take up to six bottles today before our small allocation runs out!
Although the oral history of Barolo’s great vineyards has existed for generations, detailed maps of the region are a relatively recent phenomenon—the upshot being a deeper understanding of the styles of wine being produced in different parts of the zone. The Barolo DOCG boundaries include all or part of 11 different townships, in which there are about 1,800 hectares of vineyards planted. Serralunga d’Alba is on the eastern side of the appellation area, where the best vineyards have mostly southwesterly exposures and a higher percentage of sandstone in the soils; it is known for producing perhaps the most mineral, assertively tannic styles of Barolo in the entire DOCG. Pira is one of the standard-bearer cantine in Serralunga, bottling wine not just from the Marenca cru but from the great “Vigna Rionda” and “Margheria” sites as well. When it comes to this village, Pira is a one-stop shop.
The Luigi Pira of the wine’s label was, like so many of his neighbors, a grape-grower who sold fruit to others before establishing his own brand later. His son, Gianpaolo, came aboard in the 1990s and the Pira wines began to take off in earnest, with Gianpaolo’s brothers, Romolo and Claudio, joining the team as well. Overall, they farm about 12 hectares of vineyards in and around Serralunga, six of which are planted to Nebbiolo for Barolo. Their parcel in Marenca, at 2.2 hectares, is the largest single holding in that cru and contains vines that were replanted in 1990. The site sits at about 350 meters’ elevation and faces south/southwest, typically producing wines of powerful structure and lots of minerality. The Piras age Marenca for one year in 500-liter French oak tonneaux; one year in 2,500-liter Slavonian oak casks; and one year in bottle before it is released into the market.
As has been the case with most of the 2015s we’ve tasted, this one is more approachable in its youth than is typical, but keep in mind we’re grading on a curve here: This is still Serralunga Nebbiolo we’re talking about, so give this wine a solid hour in a decanter before serving it at 60 degrees in Burgundy stems. Once you’ve done that, you’ve got a spellbinding wine on your hands: It shines a deep garnet-red in the glass and floods the zone with aromas of red and black cherry, wild strawberries, orange peel, ground espresso, crushed rocks, tobacco leaf, dried rose petals, and exotic spices. It is full-bodied, lithe, and very muscular, with an exceptionally long and aromatic finish. The balance and complexity it’s showing now bodes very well for the future, so be sure to lay a few bottles down if you can—20-30 years of graceful evolution is well within this wine’s wheelhouse! Whenever you decide to pull the cork, it’s a wine that should get main-course billing alongside a well-charred ribeye, game dishes, wild mushroom risotto…something that will tame its tannins and accentuate its walk-in-the-woods aromatics. Should you be lucky enough to score a few bottles, try the attached recipe and you’ll be in Nebbiolo heaven. Enjoy!
