A decade ago the wines of Brovio were just beginning to gain critical acclaim–not because this is a new estate (it dates back to 1863!), but simply because they had somehow managed to fly under the radar for decades. Today the family is finally getting its due, and the wines are now regarded as some of the finest in Piedmont. Long-time readers will be very familiar with their stellar line-up of Barolo Crus, as they are SommSelect hall-of-famers. Nebbiolo is 100% their bread and butter, but they have two excellent parcels of Dolcetto that are inside the Barolo DOCG. This is always one of the best examples of old-school Dolcetto–floral, pithy, and full of bittersweet cherries–that also displays more silky, modern fruit, and in the 2022 vintage they really hit this wine out of the park. I can’t empathize how delicious this wine is, and how quickly the bottle disappeared! 

Over the past two decades, the Brovia family has risen from relative obscurity to currently enjoying a status as one of the undisputed top producers in Barolo. Today, the Brovia estate is run by fourth-generation sisters, Cristina and Elena Brovia, along with Elena’s husband, Alex Sanchez. The family’s pride is a small collection of top vineyard sites in Barolo’s top villages of Serralunga d’Alba and Castiglione Falletto, but every wine they make receives critical acclaim. The estate itself is in Castiglione Falletto, in the heart of the classic Barolo DOCG zone. Though Nebbiolo has long been king here, and continues to be, there are heirloom plantings of other grapes throughout the region. Barbera and Dolcetto are the most prominent “other red grapes”, and Brovia's Dolcetto comes from two parcels,