If you maintain a wine cellar, or would like to start building one, I implore you to add today’s monumental Barolo to your collection. “Implore” is a heavy word, I know, but please take it in the spirit intended here—I want as many people as possible to experience this wine, because it stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the very best reds in the world without coming anywhere close to the prices most of those wines fetch.
It is a cornerstone collectible from an iconic family, a pitch-perfect expression of grape and place…a genuinely moving wine that left an indelible impression on all of us at SommSelect. It is also, in its way, an exciting “new” label in the tradition-rich region of Barolo, albeit one from one of its longest-established winemaking families—the Odderos. So yes, the label may be relatively new, but the vineyard—the grand cru-equivalent “Vigna Rionda,” in the village of Serralunga d’Alba—and family lineage are as prestigious as it gets. We can share up to six bottles per person today, and I’d strongly advise taking your limit. It’s that good.
Lovers of Barolo wine surely know the name Oddero: This is one of the founding families of the appellation and one of the first to bottle wines under their own label. Up until 2006, brothers Luigi and Giacomo Oddero co-owned the estate founded by their grandfather, Giacomo, in the late-1800s. When the brothers and their respective families decided to go their separate ways, they divvied up one of the most enviable (and extensive) collections of prime vineyard sites in Barolo, which included parcels all over the appellation—not just in the family’s home base in La Morra. While Giacomo (the younger) and his family retained the original winery in La Morra—and whose wines are now labeled “Oddero Poderi e Cantine”—Luigi and family acquired the historic Luigi Parà winery, about a kilometer away. Following Luigi’s passing in 2010, his wife, Lena, and children (figli), Maria and Giovanni, took over management of the estate.
Overall, the Luigi Oddero family farms an impressive 35 hectares of vineyards throughout Barolo, with winemaking assistance coming from one of the most respected cellar men in the business: Dante Scaglione, the longtime right-hand to Barolo/Barbaresco legend Bruno Giacosa. Scaglione, now a legend in his own right, has been gradually passing the torch to a young rising star named Francesco Versio, a Barbaresco native who worked with him toward the end of his tenure at Giacosa. Couple this team with a vineyard like “Vigna Rionda” and a balanced, classic vintage like 2012, and it’s impossible to expect anything but excellence.
The star-studded list of producers who’ve made wine from the Vigna Rionda cru is long, and includes Bruno Giacosa (“Collina Rionda”), Massolino, and Luigi Pira, to name a few. Like most of the top vineyard sites in the village of Serralunga (which also include the likes of Conterno’s “Cascina Francia”), Rionda has a south-southwest orientation and soils of Helvetian-era origin: limestone marls mixed with reddish sandstone, which tend to produce wines of more structure and intensity compared to the more clay-rich marls further west in La Morra and Barolo. If I were to compare it to a Burgundy Grand Cru (kind of unnecessary but irresistible), I’d probably go with “Le Chambertin” in Gevrey-Chambertin: The power and profundity of wines from these sites is unparalleled.
Sourced from a single hectare of vines at about 350 meters’ elevation, the Figli Luigi Oddero “Vignarionda” bottling spends a total of five years aging in barrel and bottle before release—36 months in “medium-sized French oak” and another 24 in bottle. It is effectively a riserva without being labeled as such, and it is instantly recognizable as a wine of incredible structure and refinement. In the glass, it’s a deep garnet-red moving to pink and orange at the rim, with an exquisitely perfumed nose of dried red and black cherry, red currant, blood orange, leather, sandalwood, tobacco, rose petals, pulverized stones, and so much more. It is a densely concentrated, very compact wine right now, with very fine-grained tannins—harmonious and beautifully constructed, but in need of a good hour in a decanter if you choose to enjoy a bottle soon. Serve it at 60-65 degrees in Burgundy stems with a beautiful winter risotto, and try to squirrel away at least a bottle or two for re-visiting in 5-7 years, when it should be entering its peak drinking window. It has at least 20 more years of positive evolution ahead of it, without a doubt—a cornerstone for your cellar no matter what its size. Enjoy!
