2018 Bovio Gianfranco, Barolo, Rocchettevino 6x75cl

The company’s first ever buying trip to Piemonte, circa 2002, saw a Ryanair flight to Genoa (cheaper than Turin), and then a helter-skelter drive north to the village of La Morra…for a superb lunch at the Bovio family’s then restaurant, Il Belvedere. Hooked. And the wines were even better when tasted later that afternoon.

It was in the 1970s that this traditional estate’s wines really started to gain a profile, as Gianfranco Bovio, having taken over from Dad Alessandro, undertook a proper revamp of the cellars. Futhermore, he recognised the differences in ‘terroir’, seeing that the 3 plots close to the winery in Annunziata (Arborina, Gattera and Rocchettevino) not only produced different styles of Nebbiolo to each other, but also contrasted with their holding in Castiglione Falletto (Parussi). His canny mantle has been inherited by daughter Alessandra, and with young winemaker Matteo Franchi at the cellar’s helm, the wines are just getting better.