Cellar Favorite: 1945
Riccardo Viganò Barolo Gran Riserva Cannubi

BY ANTONIO GALLONI | NOVEMBER 17, 2025&nbsp;The 1945 Barolo Gran Riserva Cannubi from Riccardo Viganò is an emotional, deeply moving wine. At nearly 80 years of age, the 1945 possesses remarkable color and flavor intensity of the sort I have rarely encountered in Barolos this age. Camphor, dried rose petal, tobacco, blood orange, star anise and incense all lift from the glass. Wines of this age often start to fade with air. The 1945 Viganò, on the other hand, just gets better and better.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1763390986486-CF_Nov172025.jpg">Poderi Luigi Einaudi proprietor Matteo Sardagna opened this bottle on my most recent visit to the estate. I had never seen or heard of it before. A few years before his sudden passing, longtime Einaudi winemaker Lorenzo Raimondi had gifted the bottle to Sardagna. Its lineage is fascinating. The Viganò family owned a farmhouse and vineyard in Cannubi that they later sold to Gancia, who then sold it to Einaudi in the 1990s. It’s hard to imagine under what circumstances this wine was made at the tail end of World War II. The label, with its proud Italian stripes, seems to celebrate the end of the war. I doubt I will ever see or taste this again, and I must imagine there are few bottles left anywhere. The 1945 Viganò Cannubi is a reminder of how some wines remain time capsules of very specific moments in history.&nbsp;95/Drink 2025-2028. © 2025, Vinous. No portion of this article may be copied, shared or redistributed without prior consent from Vinous. Doing so is not only a violation of our copyright but also threatens the survival of independent wine criticism.

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