Giacomo Fenocchio

Stand on the terrace of Giacomo Fenocchio cellars, atop the hill above their Bussia Sottana vines, and the entire kingdom of Barolo unfolds around you: Cannubi two hills to the left, Villero one hill to the right. It’s a view few families have earned the right to call home — and the Fenocchios have been earning it since 1864.

Five generations of Fenocchios have farmed the heart of the Barolo zone, with holdings amassed in the storied Bussia of Monforte d’Alba — a cru so intertwined with the family that locals will tell you the Fenocchios are the Bussia. Giacomo Fenocchio raised the estate’s ambitions in 1964, adding prized parcels in Cannubi and Castellero; when his son Claudio took the reins in 1989, the modernist wave was sweeping through Barolo, promising new oak, quick extractions, and easy acclaim. Claudio never wavered. Organic farming. Native-yeast fermentations without temperature control. Long macerations on the skins — up to 40 days, and a full 90 for the Riserva “90 Dì,” its cap submerged in the old way. Aging only in large Slavonian casks.

The result is what critics now call radical traditionalism: Barolos of crystalline terroir clarity from 14 hectares spanning four great crus — Bussia, Cannubi, Villero, and Castellero — each speaking its dialect of Nebbiolo with startling precision. The Bussia, deep and structured on iron-rich Helvetian marls; the Cannubi, patient and perfumed; the Villero, powerful; the Castellero, graceful and singing. Kerin O’Keefe ranks Fenocchio among her favorite Barolos alongside Giacomo Conterno and Bartolo Mascarello; The New York Times placed the 2010 second in a landmark tasting of the vintage.

Around the Barolos orbit honest, delicious Langhe classics — Nebbiolo, Barbera d’Alba Superiore, Dolcetto, the rare Freisa, Roero Arneis, and the skin-macerated “Anima Arancio” — all sensibly priced, all unmistakably Fenocchio.