Ca' del Baio Barbaresco Asili 2019

Ca’ del Baio is a family estate in the Barbaresco zone, run by Giulio Grasso and his three daughters, Paola, Valentina and Federica. The name means “house of the bay horse”, a dark horse in Piedmontese dialect, and the estate takes its character from four generations of Grassos, beginning with the family’s move from Calosso d’Asti to Treiso in the 1870s. Giulio was named Gambero Rosso’s Winemaker of the Year in 2016. Asili is where the Ca’ del Baio story began: one of the best-known crus in the Langhe, in the village of Barbaresco, on bluish clayey-limestone marl at modest altitude. The Grassos have made the wine since 1988, when the family stopped supplying grapes to the Produttori del Barbaresco, and the vines, 100% Nebbiolo, were planted between 1957 and 1999, now up to about 68 years old. The estate is farmed organically, the fruit is destemmed, and the wine is aged for an extended period before release.

The result is an elegant, refined Barbaresco, more about finesse than power. Raspberry, marasca cherry, dried rose, violet and lavender lead, with crushed herbs, thyme, black pepper, liquorice, forest floor and a touch of tar, and the palate is suave, with fine, polished tannins, lifted acidity and a long, savoury, mineral finish.