2015 Fratelli Alessandria Barolo 750 ml

Ten years ago, no one was talking about Verduno. The tiny subzone of Barolo tucked away at the region’s northern border was a mere footnote in any writing on Piemonte, an also-ran to its big brothers and sisters, La Morra, Serralunga, Castiglione Falletto, Monforte, and Barolo itself. 

Today, the reality couldn’t be more different, with the crus of Verduno on the lips of every top sommelier and collector of Italian wine—and it’s all due to the Alessandria family, who have taken the wine world by storm with their village’s unique flavor profile: pretty, fresh, floral, spicy, and bright—like the Savigny-lès-Beaune of Barolo. 

A couple years ago, Antonio Galloni of Vinous called Alessandria “one of Piedmont’s under-the-radar jewels.” No longer! From the slopes of Verduno (which translates to “flowering hill”) you can overlook the whole of the Langhe, the local name for the long, rolling hills presenting as “tongues” of land. Verduno is essentially the northward extension of the La Morra ridgeline, and its commanding position has earned it the nickname of the Sentinel of Barolo. 

Three branches of the Alessandria family control the trio of producers headlining the Verduno show: Castello di Verduno, G.B. Burlotto, and Fratelli Alessandria. The success of wines like Fratelli Alessandria’s 2015 Barolo, called “beautifully elegant and compact” and awarded 94 points from Monica Larner at Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, has sparked a bit of a Verduno arms race, with bigger names from other parts of the Barolo region like Oddero and Paolo Scavino getting in on the game with their own Verduno bottlings. 

We have really enjoyed those new releases, but find ourselves coming back again and again to the founding core of Verduno. Fratelli Alessandria is an eighth-generation producer, making them one of the oldest not just in Verduno but in Barolo as a whole. Unsurprisingly, they employ traditional methods in their small cellar for this gorgeous wine: fermentation by indigenous yeasts (they even foot-tread the pied de cuve!), 20-25 days of maceration with the skins, and long aging in 20- to 25-hectoliter Slavonian and French casks. That long aging lets them bottle the wines unfined and unfiltered, which retains the full color and aroma character inherent in the wine.  

The 2015 is a perfect introduction to the wines at this address. Galloni cites the nuanced notes of “macerated dark cherry, leather, cedar, tobacco, and spice” that give the 2015 its expressive charm. Best of all, the 2015 will drink well right out of the gate, thanks to a warm growing season. But it will still age well, which is a point that often falls by the wayside in discussions of Verduno. Just because its drinking window opens earlier doesn’t mean it can’t go the distance in the cellar: we’ve had memorable bottles of Verduno Barolo from the ‘60s and ‘70s that were still positively vibrating with life force. This wine is so pretty, so approachable, and fun to drink that it is easy to miss how serious a wine this is.

Fortunately, a wet winter before this vintage loaded the soil up with enough moisture to prevent too much hydric stress on the vines during the hot and dry early-summer months of 2015. But soils vary significantly in Barolo, and looser or sandier parcels didn’t benefit as much in this way. Verduno has almost no sand but high concentrations of limestone and clay, which are much better for retaining water. Furthermore, Verduno’s unique proximity to the Tanaro River that divides the larger zone from Roero to the north offered cooler evenings than in Barolo as a whole, and we know that diurnal temperature variation is key to preserving acidity in grapes ripening on the vine. In the end, Vittore Alessandria told us he characterizes the vintage as bountiful, fruity, and rich.

Warmer, dryer growing conditions over the last twenty years have ushered in a Golden Age for Piemonte, with hardly a bad year to note. This is in stark contrast to the bulk of the 20th century, where truly great vintages came along about twice per decade. Storm patterns have also changed in Barolo, with storms coming into the valleys from different directions than they used to, and so hitting different hillsides than before. Verduno has benefited disproportionately in this period, and Fratelli Alessandria has been on a meteoric rise. Grab some of this gem today before it falls into the dreaded “Allocated” category in future vintages.