Barolo Bricco Manescotto 2017 Corino (6x75cl)

Barolo, Bricco Manescotto 2017 Corino (6x75cl)

Like many producers in La Morra, the Corino family started off in the 1950s as mezzadri, or sharecroppers, selling grapes to cooperatives. Fast forward to the 1980s and Giuliano Corino, the present owner, was determined to start making and bottling his own wine.

(The 2016 sold rather swiftly but the 2017 is living up to the billing too!)

Wine making in Barolo was going through a transformation with the advent of new thinking, based on foundations laid by the now famous Angelo Gaja. Giuliano decided to experiment with rotary fermenters, short macerations and small French oak barrels. As with all new ideas and techniques, it has taken him many vintages to adapt them to the peculiarities of Nebbiolo.

These days, he is helped both in the vineyard and in the cellar by his wife, Stefania, daughter, Veronica, and son, Andrea. The wines they make are wonderful expressions of the prime sites planted just below La Morra, where the estate’s nine hectares are cultivated.

The Bricco Manescotto vineyard sits on the border with Castiglione Falletto with a south-western exposure with soil characterised by equal proportions of clay, sand and marls.

Giuliano controls extraction during fermentation with rotary fermenters. These fermenters are completely different to the traditional open topped vats, where juice is pumped from the bottom to the top to extract all of the ingredients from the skins. Here the whole vat rotates, a bit like a cement mixer and extraction is continuous.

The majority of the wines are matured for up to 24 months in small French barrels, of which roughly a third are new. Once blended, the wines spend about six months in stainless steel prior to bottling.

Delicious!