Barolo: A Classification of Vineyards

By Antonio Galloni

Trying to gain an understanding of the vineyards of Barolo has been an all-consuming passion since I started visiting Piedmont 18 years ago. Over the last few years in particular I have begun to collect my thoughts on the region and its vineyards. Barolo: A Classification of Vineyards is the result of that work. Any ranking of vineyard sites is of course very personal and subjective. This classification is based on years of traveling throughout the region and a lifetime of buying, cellaring and drinking the wines of Barolo.

For the last few years winemakers and local authorities in Piedmont have been engaged in an exercise to formally define the boundaries and names of the vineyards in Barolo and Barbaresco. There are now 166 official Menzioni Geografiche Aggiuntive, which loosely translates to Additional Geographical Definitions, many of which I imagine readers have never heard of. Frankly, I’ve never heard of some of these sites. Getting producers to agree on anything is next to impossible, but the biggest problem with the new Menzioni is that each town was left to its own devices in setting the criteria for defining vineyards and naming conventions. That means there are villages like Serralunga where serious work was undertaken and the vineyard boundaries are quite specific. In other cases, Monforte being the biggest culprit, politics won out over common sense, which leaves the consumer and general public with an area called ‘Bussia’ that is so large it has been rendered meaningless. Ironically, it is the consumer, who in buying a bottle of Barolo supports every grape grower, winery owner, winery employee and person who makes a living off of the wine trade, who is the biggest loser. Let me state it simply. Without the consumer, no one in Barolo would have a job, much less enjoy the wealth that can be created by making wine in a prestigious appellation.

The steep hills of Monprivato, Castiglione Falletto, with VIllero and Boroli's Cascina La Brunella in the background

In order to make new Menzioni easy to navigate, I have broken down the sites into four macro categories: Exceptional, Outstanding, Noteworthy and Delimited. These are roughly analogous to the Burgundian Grand Cru, Premier Cru, villages and regional appellations. One of the main differences between Piedmont and Burgundy is that in Piedmont vineyard designations often encompass an entire hill from top to bottom, as we see when looking at sites such as Cascina Francia, Monprivato and Bricco Boschis. In Burgundy, the Grand Crus are almost all mid-slope and rarely cover an entire hillside, Clos St. Jacques, and Clos de Tart being two notable exceptions. In a perfect world, Piedmont's vineyards would be divided into smaller, more specific portions within the vineyards that already exist. But we don’t live in a perfect world. The hills in Piedmont are also quite steep and snaking in their contours, which means vineyards often have multiple exposures, as we see in places like Cannubi Boschis and Falletto. Within vineyards, surface areas tend to be more even, with fewer of the sudden dips one often encounters in Burgundy. Lastly, there are also no walled-in clos-like vineyards in Piemonte.

Roberto Voerzio’s vineyards in Cerequio, La Morra

Using the Classification of Barolo Vineyards with the Interactive Barolo Map