Bruno Giacosa Barolo Falletto 2019

There are very few stories in the world of wine that are more important to tell than that of Bruno Giacosa. A man’s legacy etched into lore, and with such gravitas that it is still felt today in his native Piemonte by almost all the producers in the region.

Born in 1929 in Neive where the winery remains, Bruno Giacosa spent his formative teenage years working with his father Carlo as a ‘commerciante’ or grape broker. This very important but often overlooked part of Giacosa’s history is perhaps the key to understanding his unrivalled ability to select fruit, even that which he hadn’t grown himself. The family’s income at that time revolved solely around the ability to sell fruit to winemakers, and taking any fruit to Vinify themselves would have been a conflict of interest. In fact, his father so vehemently opposed the young Bruno’s intention to bottle his own wine in the early 1960’s, that he had to do so without the blessing of the family.

The first vintage wearing the label Bruno Giacosa was 1961, a single Barbaresco bottling from a mixture of vineyards as was custom at the time. It was the prominent wine author and critic Luigi Veronelli who at the time was crusading for Piedmont’s adoption of the French ‘cru’ classification of vineyard that convinced Giacosa to bottle and (importantly) label single vineyard wines soon after his first vintage. The first labelled cru bottling was the 1964 Barbaresco Vigna Santo Stefano, but it is possible that even the first wine used fruit exclusively from there. While the obsession with site continued and strengthened throughout Bruno Giacosa’s career, so did the predilection to purchase fruit from growers rather than buy vineyards himself. Though Giacosa was not the only winemaker somewhat late to the party in buying land in the Langhe, it is regarded as his greatest missed opportunity. Some of Italy’s greatest wines ever were Giacosa’s red label bottlings from Santo Stefano di Neive, Villero and Collina Rionda, none of which are produced today by the estate.

In vinous literacy, it is impossible to read about the Langhe without reading about Giacosa and his contemporary Angelo Gaja. While Gaja was a willing frontman for the region, Giacosa continued to toil in the background. Both leading from the front and each producing the region’s best wines. Winemaking involves a great many small decisions, each affecting the next. One can only hope to get them right, to capture what there was in the grapes to begin with. - Bruno Giacosa

In the great years when a Barolo ‘Falletto Vigna Le Rocche’ are produced, the fruit for Barolo ‘Falletto’ comes from all but the very top parts of the Falletto vineyard. In most vintages, this wine is the most ready of the Barolos and shows Giacosa’s sweetly fruited Nebbiolo in the shortest window after opening.

Being from the Southern part of Serralunga d’Alba and almost bordering Monforte, the wines from this site are rich in ferrous intensity, with sweet blackberries, blueberries, orange skin and earth. They display the silky overall composure and high energy typical to Giacosa’s reds. Firm but elegant tannins.

Red garnet in colour. Showcasing elegant and fine aromas of fresh plum, cherry and spice notes, the wine is dense and structured with great freshness on the palate and well-balanced tannins.

The Finer Details
Style - Red Wine
Varietal - Nebbiolo
Country - Italy
Region - Piedmont
Vintage - 2019
Bottle Size - 750ml
ABV - 14.5%