2012 Dolcetto d'Alba

The ambitious young Luca Roagna, whose great-grandfather produced wine in Barbaresco at the end of the 19th century, recently completed a huge new low-impact winery in Castiglione Falletto, where he will vinify both Barbaresco and Barolo in 2013 in big, open wood vats and then age them in all-used 30-to-60-hectoliter barrels.While some insiders describe today's Roagna wines as modern, they are actually rather traditional (for his part, Roagna describes his style as "postmodern:I look for the purity of the variety"), with total maceration time of 60 to 90 days, and cappello sommerso employed in an attempt to get a soft extraction of tannins.Roagna eschews pumping over the must early in the fermentation, explaining that "if you extract tannins in the presence of alcohol, the wines will be greener."He described himself as a late picker, as he looks for "crisp seeds."Roagna bottles his Barolos and Barbarescos late, then holds the wines back prior to release.He only recently shipped his 2008s to the U.S. market, which accounts for a sizable 25% of his sales.The top cuvees here are quite limited, typically ranging from 600 to 2,000 bottles per year (his total production is between 50,000 and 70,000 bottles annually and his huge new facility provides cool storage conditions for a million bottles).Roagna, who told me that he'd really rather not reach conclusions about the quality of a vintage before it's 20 years old, describes 2006 as "classic, never a primary expression," while the 2007s are "more open, more rich."The 2008s, he added, are characterized by their purity of fruit and elegance and offer great aging potential.He was not quite ready to show, or even talk about, his 2009s.