If you want to experience the glory of the Langhe hills, high-flying–and high-priced–Nebbiolo isn’t the only way to do it. You could instead revel in a wine like Falletto di Bruno Giacosa’s Barbera d’Alba 2019, which ticks every blue chip Piedmont box you can think of. It comes from one of the true legends in the region, an estate that ranks alongside the Mascarellos and Rinaldis in gravitas. It’s grown in one of the best sites in one of Barolo’s most famous villages, and hails from a vintage already flagged as one to drink in a half-century. At five years of age, it’s drinking beautifully now but will go for well over a decade in your cellar. Most of all, with its soaring red-fruited lift and rumbling spice, its sanguine minerality and a structure that just begs for truffles and risotto, it scratches the Piedmont itch better than most Nebbiolo could ever hope to. Forget any notion of Barbera being the quaffer you drink before you break out the serious wine; Giacosa’s Barbera is the serious wine. Load on up!
Even in Piedmont, a region packed to bursting with illustrious names, Bruno Giacosa stands out. He’s actually most famous for putting Barbaresco on the map. Alongside Produttori di Barbaresco and the Gaja family, he carried the village’s international reputation through the 20th century. Now Barbaresco has almost as many great producers as Barolo, but for long decades, these three estates were practically the only names worth knowing. Bruno’s recipe for success will be familiar to anyone who knows how the other greats work: traditional techniques like long macerations and aging in large oak combined with contemporary rigor about cleanliness and site-specificity. Bruno, though, took things even further. He only bottled vintages he thought worthy of his and the village’s name, and would often sell off entire harvests in bulk if they weren’t up to his standards. Sadly, Bruno passed away in 2018, but his daughter Bruna now runs the estate with the same exacting eye.
In 1980, Bruno Giacosa expanded his operation outside of Barbaresco by purchasing the Falletto property. It’s located in Serralunga d’Alba, what might be thought of as the most Barolo-esque of the Barolo villages. All of Barolo’s signature qualities are at their most amplified here, from the ageworthy structure to the deep fruit. The same can be said of the Barbera grown here, especially in the Falletto cru. Steeply pitched and fully southwest facing, Serralunga’s famous calcareous clay soils imbue Barbera with a more rigid tannin profile and deeper mineral tones than we typically see. Bruno Giacosa isn’t even alone in singling out Barbera from this corner of Barolo; indeed, Giacomo Conterno’s Cascina Fontana, maybe the most famous and ageable Barbera in the world, is grown a stone’s throw from Giacosa’s Falletto.
The Falletto di Bruno Giacosa Barbera d’Alba 2019 was picked at high levels of ripeness–the finished wine is a hair over 14% alcohol–and then fermented in stainless steel for 15 days. It then aged in French oak barrels for a year before bottling. Now, five years out from the vintage, it’s starting to really strut its stuff. 2019 wasn’t uniformly great for all producers in the region, but a few winemakers made wines that are already among the best this century. That’s true of Bruna Giacosa and her Barbera. It pours a deep ruby with some purple highlights, and rushes from the glass with a heady swirl of rich purple plums, blackberry liqueur, black cherry, rose petal, and lavender. There are more earthy tones here than we see in most Barbera, with an almost bloody iron quality alongside black pepper, leather, and scrubby herbs. The palate is full and ample, leaning into that darkly rich fruit before a wash of acidity comes through to freshen it up. It closes with fine, almost sandy tannin that doesn’t quite approach Nebbiolo levels but nonetheless promises over a decade more of positive aging. This is just great Piedmontese wine through and through, the spirit of Barolo, only filtered through a different lens. Every lover of topnotch Italian juice should jump at this opportunity.
