The history of the Giuseppe Rinaldi winery began in the mid-1800s when Battista Rinaldi, after years of work as a farmer, engaged in the vineyards of Marquises Falletti di Barolo, at the extinction of this family, managed to buy, with many sacrifices, some of those plots, in areas of great value such as Brunate, Le Coste, Ravera and Cannubi San Lorenzo. Battista’s intention was simply to cultivate the vine and sell the grapes produced, but his son Giuseppe convinced him to try the road of winemaking and bottling on his own and, in 1920 (finally), officially founded the Cantina Giuseppe Rinaldi. Since then the winery has passed from father to son, from Giuseppe to Battista (grandson of the homonymous patriarch), from Battista again to a Giuseppe, called Beppe, and from Beppe, after his untimely death in 2018, to Martha and her sister Carlotta.
Although the figure of Beppe was of crucial importance for this winery, as his wines, in the decades between the 20th and 21st century, represented one of the highest expressions of Langa oenology, life goes on and this Barbera d’Alba 2018 is one of the first, interesting, test for Marta, young winemaker trained at the famous school of Alba. For her too, wine was born in the vineyard, a vineyard cured with an approach that, without official certifications, follows the organic philosophy, with the ban of every chemical product, the homeopathic use of traditional copper and sulfur, and organic fertilization with bovine manure. The grapes, after a careful manual selection, are vinified naturally, with fermentation that starts spontaneously, without temperature control or addition of exogenous yeasts. The wine obtained makes a double aging, first in steel and then in cask, for 5 months, before being placed on the market.
In this vintage, the wine has a ruby red color streaked with purple, with an aroma dominated by a great idea of freshness, with wild strawberry, red blueberry, crispy heartberry and tea rose petal, followed by orange peel, pomegranate, rammed earth and pot-pourri, with conclusive iodine and vinyl echoes. The taste is mainly acid, with an almost overflowing acidity but at the same time extremely balanced and vibrant, with the right amount of sapidity and that little softness that keeps the sip in balance, without weighing it down, accompanied by the return of bright, fresh and crisp red fruit, and dried red flower which persist until a refreshing closure of good length.
Rating: 89/100
Want to find out what I can do for you? Click here!
