2021 Aldo Conterno Bussia Barolo Piedmont 750 ml

Wine collectors call Bussia one of the greatest vineyards in Italy. The Conterno family calls it home.

Aldo Conterno was one of the small circle of producers who shaped the modern history of Barolo—a name so central to the region that many simply knew him as the King of Barolo. In 1969 he left his family’s winery, wanting the freedom to work in a less rigidly traditional vein, and bought the Favot estate with its holdings in the heart of the Bussia cru. His three sons run the estate today, and they’ve changed little about the methods and farming their father put in place.

Bussia is one of the most acclaimed sites in all of Piedmont, a grand cru by anyone’s standards—a sweep of bluish, calcareous marl above Monforte d’Alba that turns out some of Italy’s most structured, perfumed Nebbiolo. The Conternos bottle their finest parcels here on their own—Romirasco, Cicala, and Colonnello—and blend the greatest of them into the legendary Granbussia Riserva.

Their classic Barolo is drawn from the estate’s older vines across the Bussia Soprana section—vines that average around 40 years of age, none younger than 20. It’s the truest portrait of the cru as a whole, and the estate’s calling-card bottling.

Aldo earned a modernist’s reputation in his day for shortening macerations and pressing earlier, to smooth tannins and make wines that showed well young. On oak, though, he never budged. Fermentation runs on native yeasts, and the wine spends better than two years in large Slavonian oak casks—never barrique—so nothing stands between the drinker and the site.

The 2021 vintage is a classic one for Barolo. After a run of hot years, a long, snow-fed growing season without punishing heat spikes gave Nebbiolo the slow, even ripening it craves. The wines carry structure and freshness in equal measure, and above all they’re transparent—each site speaking in its own voice.

In the glass, expect dark cherry and crushed plum, rose petal, licorice, and sweet pipe tobacco, with a lift of fresh herbs and crushed stone. There is real power here, but it’s the polish and the refinement of the tannins that leave a mark.