Sometimes, there’s so much more behind a wine’s label than meets the eye. If you love the wines of Barbaresco, you may recognize the name “Ovello”: It is one of the most highly regarded single vineyard sites in the region. What you might not recognize is Cantina del Pino, whose proprietors only started making their own wines in 1997 but have farmed this site for generations.
Winemaker/owner Renato Vacca tends some of the oldest vines in Barbaresco, and if that surname is familiar, yes, he is the cousin of Aldo Vacca, the longtime manager of the famed Produttori del Barbaresco cooperative. For many years, Renato’s branch of the family sold their grapes to Produttori del Barbaresco, whose “Ovello” bottlings have proved to be some of the longest-lived Barbarescos of all time—but in the many years since he first went solo, Renato has more than held his own with Cantina del Pino’s version. Today’s 2012 is just now starting to reveal itself, but it has many years of evolution still ahead of it. It is an elite wine in every way except price—our favorite kind—and we can offer up to six bottles per customer until our small allocation runs out. Looking for a wine you can dip into both now and 10+ years from now? This one’s for you.
Digging a little deeper into its history only deepens my appreciation for this wine. The maritime pine tree depicted on the label is said to have been planted by local legend Domizio Cavazza, who served as the director of the Royal Enological School in Alba from 1888-1913. Cavazza made his home on the Ovello hill, and was responsible for the creation of the Barbaresco wine cooperative that became Produttori del Barbaresco. Renato Vacca’s great-grandfather purchased Cantina del Pino from Cavazza’s family, and the Vaccas have been firmly rooted in Ovello ever since, with some of their vines in the cru exceeding 70 years of age.
The Ovello vineyard is the northernmost cru-designated vineyard in the village of Barbaresco, reaching about 300 meters’ elevation and spilling down a bluff to both the southeast and southwest. The Vacca familys two hectares are oriented to the southwest, with soils comprised of the typical Barbaresco mix of clay, limestone, and sandstone. Ovello is said to have a higher concentration of clay than many neighboring sites, which contributes extra richness to its wines, and when it comes to longevity, this site is hard to beat. I’ve had many back-vintage Ovello bottlings from the Produttori del Barbaresco over the years (one of the most memorable being a ’78), and when I tasted Cantina del Pino’s ’12 I recognized a wine built for the long haul.
What I also recognized was a wine that oozes Barbaresco typicity: This isn’t a Barbaresco trying to be a Barolo, but rather a taut, focused, highly perfumed wine that shows off some of the Nebbiolo grape’s more ‘feminine’ attributes. Aged 24 months in barrel and 18 months in bottle before its initial release, the wine has now enjoyed a few more years in bottle and is beginning to shed its youthful tannins and broaden in texture (2012 was a structured year, and the wine still needs a good 30-60 minutes in a decanter to unwind). In the glass, it’s a medium crimson moving to pink and orange at the rim, offering up the full array of Nebbiolo aromas: red currant, crushed raspberry, pomegranate, blood orange peel, wild herbs, roses, leather, tobacco, and underbrush. It still has a very focused, taut structure, with fine-grained tannins; in a few more years’ time, this is going to be an explosive bottle of wine, which is not to say it doesn’t have a lot going on right now. In the short term, decant it well before service at 60-65 degrees in Burgundy stems and be sure it’s got some food to tame it. It should continue to age gracefully to 2030, likely peaking on its tenth birthday or thereabouts. There’s something really moving about wines like this—they seem to linger on the palate indefinitely—and they only get better alongside an earthy, soul-warming risotto. With winter on its way soon, we all need some of this at the ready. Enjoy!
