2006 Barbera d'Alba Conca Tre Pile

Giacomo Conterno, who is responsible for the vineyards while his brothers Stefano and Franco take care of winemaking and sales, emphasized to me that this family winery is still old school. "My father [Aldo] always said that you need to wait if you want to have a great vintage. We wait for maximum phenolic ripeness, which normally comes two or three days after full sugar ripeness. Then you get the possibility of extracting a full range of aromas-not just fruit." In 2005, Giacomo went on, the terroir made the difference. "It was necessary to have ripe fruit before the big rain came. We picked half before and half afterwards and did two separate vinifications. We didn't find a big difference in color but there was a big difference in taste. The early-picked fruit gave elegant, pleasurable wines-not especially deep but very floral-but the late fruit showed unbalanced tannins and we sold it off in bulk." Conterno emphasized that the estate makes 40% less wine now than they did in the 1990s. He also admitted that there was a dip in quality here from 1995 through 1999. "The new generation [Giacomo and his brothers] did too much experimentation, and we picked too early. Now we're doing more and different pruning and we sacrifice production to make the best wines possible," he explained. Conterno likened 2006 to 1989 ("classic"), and 2007 to 1990 ("sweet"), but noted that a fierce hail storm in late May of '07 resulted in the loss of 100% of the Romirasco fruit, 70% of Colonnello and 40% of Cicala. As Gran Bussia comes mostly from Romirasco, this bottling will not be offered in 2007.

These 2006 reds from Aldo Conterno are well worth seeking out.