2021 Ferdinando Principiano Langhe Freisa Organic, Piedmont

Strawberry, violets, and dried red flowers. very bright on the palate with fresh acidity and wild cherry fruit. Crushed rocks minerals and firm tannins to finish. Grows at 500 meters above sea level, in Monforte d’Alba. Destemmed grapes ferment with wild yeasts. Aging takes place for 6 months in Slavonian oak before bottling.

Ferdinando Principiano is one of the new crop of exciting young winegrowers to farm Piedmont’s Langhe hills. He graduated from Alba’s Scuola Viticole Umberto I in 1993, joining his father Americo at the Monforte D’Alba domaine following an apprenticeship at both Giacomo Conterno & Roberto Voerzio; the best of both worlds you could say. The former drove his determination to produce a pure and balanced style of Barolo, persuading him that nurturing the vineyard soil and rejecting the use of artificial fertilisers and pesticides gives the correct conditions for the vine to thrive in. Voerzio taught him tradition for its’ own sake does not necessarily give you the best results.

The precipitous slope of the Ravera di Monforte Cru lies at the southern tip of Barolo. Take one step away from the foot of the slope and you have left DOCG Barolo. This facing hill is where Ferdinando has his inherited Le Coste vineyards in the Langhe DOC. It’s a stretch to call this the wild frontier but it is different from central Barolo where smooth hills are sculpted entirely out of vines. These were Ferdinando’s grandfather’s vines & the house where Ferdinando was born sits here in the valley. Look beyond and the brow of Cascina Francia watches over the curve of its sibling Boscareto. And so Ferdinando is, as many of the greatest Piemontese are, not just rooted in Barolo but in this, his individual area of Barolo. Vines, woods, silence, no main roads, just peace and quiet and wildlife. This is what Barolo means to Ferdinando.