Massalino Barolo Serralunga OFFER – 2013 Vintage

First produced in 1911, the fruit for Massolino’s classic cuvée is selected from seven sites (inc. Briccolina, Collaretto, Broglio and Le Turne), representing roughly seven hectares of prime-sited Serralunga vineyards. The oldest vines that feed this bottling are 55 years old (the youngest are 10), and it spends 24-30 months in large Slavonian oak casks.  This has all the makings of a classic; beautiful cherry blossom, purity and gentle, wild strawberry fruit, and the allusive complexity and compact, seeping tannin of a great Massolino Barolo.

The Margheria vineyard is one of Serralunga’s most important and illustrious sites. The Massolino family bought their first parcel here in 1964 and the rest throughout the 70s. They currently hold 1.5 hectares. Sitting at 340 metres above sea level, Margheria is a very chalky vineyard with a good percentage of sand, which brings elegance and a spicy, mineral complexity to the natural depth of Serralunga. This was aged in botti for around 30 months before bottling and then remained in bottle for a further year before release. Nine times out of ten, Margheria is the Serralunga cru that seduces best when young. It starts with enticing mineral notes segueing into dried flower and inky plum fruit.  The plate is all sweet woodland earthiness and pretty red fruit wrapped in a sung blanket of elegant, liquid-silk tannins.

In 1957, Parafada became the Massolino family’s first prime parcel of Serralunga and it is still home to their oldest vines. Massolino own a 1.13 hectare parcel that rises steeply from 300 to 340 metres above sea level and faces due south, catching the full face of the sun. Thesefactors, plus the denser, marly, lime-infused, more compact clay soils, typically result in the richest, most powerful wine of the three Serralunga crus. Again this is a vineyard that seems to get better and better with each vintage, producing better balanced and more delicious wines than ever before. Again, 30 months in botti and here there’s a dark seam of vivid, fleshy fruit – black raspberries macerated with sweet herbs – to complement the vineyard’s deep, refined structure.  For all its athleticism, it’s an engagingly restrained Barolo of enticing beauty.

The Massolino clan purchased a 1.3 hectare plot of this cru in 2007. It is the only Barolo vineyard they own outside of Serralunga. Parussi is in fact situated close to the Serralunga border, but in Castiglione Falletto. The iron rich, ‘blue’ clay soils here are a little lighter, more oxygenated, with more silt and less clay than Serralunga. This makes for more vigour in the vines and a completely different style of wine. The Massolino family were attracted by the excellent south-easterly and south-westerly exposure of the vines, the vineyard’s situation at 300 metres above sea level on the crest of the hill, and the 45 year old vines. They are today the only Barolo producer to bottle a single vineyard wine from this cru. So it’s an important wine. The commune of Castiglione lies closer to the geographical centre of Barolo and generally generates a more masculine wine with tannins that can be more prominent when the wines are young. This might be the best example of Parussi so far. The Massolino team are getting a deeper understanding of this vineyard with each vintage and have evolved the viticulture and the winemaking. Most significantly they are now performing a more gentle extraction and the result is far more finesse than we have seen in previous releases. Wow. Again, this showcases the elegant, scented enchantment of the best 2013 Barolos, here wreathed in enveloping, mouth coating tannin to go with the long sinewy backbone drenched in red-fruit fragrance.

“If you ask a resident of Serralunga to name the town’s three finest vineyards, one of the trio is sure to be Vigna Rionda … It is an historic vineyard. The quality of its grapes has been celebrated for hundreds of years and the greatest names in the Langhe have for many years made special efforts to acquire grapes from Vigna Rionda.” Slow Food’s A Wine Atlas of the Langhe (2008)
Vigna Rionda is historically the most revered vineyard of Serralunga, the source of some of the greatest, finest, yet most robust and long-lived Barolo. The soil here is similar to the Parafada vineyard (limey/chalky marls), yet it is deeper again, there is more chalk and also a higher concentration of minerals and oxidized iron elements. The deeper soils, the altitude of 330 metres above sea level and the protection from northern winds and frost that the south/southwestern slopes affords means that Vigna Rionda has a longer growing season than the other crus. All these factors combine to produce a terroir that gifts wines with an optimum balance of perfume, finesse and structure rarely found elsewhere in Barolo. It also produces a wine with excellent acidity and tannins that require a longer ageing in botti and bottle. That is why it is released with a minimum six years of age.

The Massolino family are the largest holders in the Vigna Rionda with 3.5 hectares (2 planted to Nebbiolo). The wine from this exceptional site begins life as a coiled spring, which is why Massolino releases it with extra age: at six years (for the standard Riserva release) and ten-plus years for the Dieci X Anni release. With enough age, Vigna Rionda blossoms into an intensely perfumed, ultra-fine, pure and succulent wine with very fine tannins. Drawn from 38-45 year old vines, Franco Massolino expresses that the 2011 Riserva has been building up to a simmer; that, in Piemonte, the top growers are whispering that the best 2011s are much closer to the quality of 2010 than initially thought. Here’s a case in point, though the style is more swashbuckling – open and succulent – than its 2010 counterpart. The notes below do the wine justice.  So much personality; beguiling purity of soft fruit, balanced and penetrating, with streamlined acidity and a lick of oyster shell contributing vineyard flavour. A very, very impassive, resonant Vigna Rionda. Oh, Serralunga! as Luigi Veronelli might have sighed.