This is an offer for our most passionate Italian wine collectors, who no doubt instantly recognize this wine’s distinctive label and remember the charismatic man who put it on the international wine map. Cappellano is a well-known surname in the Barolo region of Piedmont, in part because it is associated with the region’s most iconic 'chinato'—the bittersweet, herb-infused liqueur made with a base of Barolo red wine.
Teobaldo “Baldo” Cappellano had a hand in reviving interest in chinato (the Cappellano family recipe was created by his uncle), but his greatest contribution to the world of drink was his steadfastly classic, exceptionally pure wines. Teobaldo Cappellano’s wines are held up as benchmarks of “traditional” Barolo, and it is now Teobaldo’s son, Augusto, who carries the torch (Teobaldo passed away in 2009). Sourced from just four hectares of lovingly tended vines in the Barolo village of Serralunga d’Alba, Cappellano’s wines—even this “flagship” Barolo bottling—are never in large supply, but our allocation of this 2012 is especially tiny: We are only able to offer just two bottles per customer until it sells out.
Cappellano’s Barolo is sourced from the “Gabutti” vineyard, a southwest-facing slope in Serralunga d’Alba, but in a gesture that characterized Teobaldo’s approach to wine and life, he put the name of the farmer who sold him the land—Otin Fiorin—on the label. It has remained there, as has another somewhat obscure indicator, “Pié Rupestris,” which refers to vines that at one point in time had been re-planted on American rootstock. The Cappellano family’s history in Barolo dates to the pre-phylloxera days, and Teobaldo, upon entering the family business in earnest in the 1950s, searched for (and found) pre-phylloxera rootstocks to use in the Gabutti cru. A rarer Barolo bottling, called “Pié Franco,” is produced from those vines.
As Augusto Cappellano describes it, his father was a romantic and a bit of an anarchist; he was one of the founding members of the Italian collective called “Vini Veri,” which is devoted to organic farming practices and traditional winemaking techniques, and became well-known in Italy and elsewhere for his polite, yet impassioned,
request that wine critics not assign scores to his wines. This is surely one reason these wines continue to fly under the radar; he never submitted them for “review”!
Continuing in the same manner as his father, Augusto Cappellano subjects his Barolo to a long maceration on the grape skins during the initial fermentation, ages it in large, used Slavonian oak
botti, and bottles it unfined and unfiltered. It is “traditional” Barolo to be sure, but don’t mistake “traditional” for “funky” and “rustic” (which is still easy to do in Barolo). There’s a crystalline purity, and substantial concentration, to the Nebbiolo fruit that lends this 2012 more than a passing resemblance to great Côte de Nuits red Burgundy. In the glass, it’s a classic garnet-red moving to brick-orange at the rim. There’s a nice, fresh blast of cherry kirsch and red currant on the nose, accented with aromas of rose petal, violet, warm spice, dried herbs, and a hint of leather. This being Nebbiolo, the tannins are firm, but not at all overbearing—for a wine from the village of Serralunga, which is known for its stonier, more powerful styles of Barolo, this is a relatively sweet-tempered expression; it is drinkable now if given a good amount of air (60 minutes feels right) and served at 60-65 in big Burgundy stems, otherwise leave it to mature for about five years more in your cellar. Fireworks await, and you’ll wish—as we do—that we had more! Cheers!
