A ripe growing year that ended in a crisp harvest, 2017 ended beautifully for Antinori’s team at the Prunotto estate, and the ’17 Pian Romualdo Barbera d'Alba reflects its high quality, low yield vintage in its intense, genial profile and silky texture. Sun-drenched red and black fruits mingle with smoky minerals, violet petals, baking spices, warm earth and melted chocolate in this lip-smacking delicious Barbera. Full-bodied yet balanced, this wine wraps its brambly fruits around a core of minerals and loads its energetic finish with lots of chewy tannins--it’s delicious! Deriving from Barbera vines grown in the estate’s calcium-rich Pian Romualdo plot, the grapes for this wine enjoy temperature-controlled fermentation, and the wine ages for a year in oak casks, followed by four months in bottle before release.
- Country: Italy
- Region: Piemonte
Prunotto got its start in 1904, when Alfred Prunotto helped to found a wine collective in Serralunga; in 1922, this collective disbanded, and Alfred founded his own winery in its place. Thirty years later, as Alfred looked to retire, he turned his winery over to enologist Beppe Colla, who ran it with his brother Tino until their retirement in the ‘90s. Along with Ceretto, Beppe launched the idea of single-vineyard bottlings of Barolo and Barbaresco, using Burgundy’s model to create what many wine-lovers see as the Grand Crus of these wines. Antinori joined forces with Prunotto in 1989, and a year later, Albiera Antinori took control of the project, aiming to fine-tune the wines of Prunotto. In conjunction with the Colla brothers, Albiera acquired new vineyards, including holdings in Bussia’s Colonnello, one of the most esteemed vineyards in Barolo. In 1994, Antinori assumed full control of the estate, but it still took fourteen years for Prunotto Barolo Bussia Vigna Colonnello Riserva to be born. Working with winemaker Gianluca Torrengo, Albeira and her team at Prunotto strived to create a wine that was worthy of this renowned vineyard. Tinkering with whole cluster fermentation since 2004, the team finally found a protocol that does this historic winery justice.
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