Santa Maria CAPALÒT Barolo DOCG (2019) –– Piemonte

The Viberti family make just two wines, a Barolo and a Langhe Nebbiolo, and have done so in the same La Morra farmhouse for two centuries. This is the Barolo: perfumed, structured, and aged the old way in big Slavonian casks.

THE GRAPE
Nebbiolo from Capalòt, a historic cru sitting at 350 metres in Santa Maria di La Morra. Clay and limestone marl with veins of sand, and a subsoil that holds water — useful when summers get hotter. The morning sun here gives the wine more body than La Morra usually offers, so this is not the softest corner of the village.

THE WINE
Two years in 10-hectolitre Slavonian casks, then a year in bottle before Walter lets it out. 2019 was a classic vintage, cool and long, and the wine has the bones to show for it: violet, sour cherry, a little tar, forest floor and white pepper, with a tannin that is firm but never rough. Ready now with an hour's air; properly rewarding in 2030.

FOOD PAIRING
Brasato, roast beef, agnolotti del plin with meat juices, or a risotto with Castelmagno. Anything slow-cooked and Piedmontese.

THE WINEMAKER
The Viberti family have grown Nebbiolo in the hamlet of Santa Maria, La Morra, since the late 1700s and bottled it since 1935. Walter Viberti runs the farm today as his father did: hand-picked grapes, big old Slavonian casks, and around 10,000 bottles a year, half Barolo and half Langhe Nebbiolo. He calls himself one of the last zebras among the lions of Barolo — no consultants, no barriques, no plans to grow.