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This is the heart of Barbera. A beautiful vineyard surrounding an old country villa that belonged to the ancestors of the Ratti family. Pietro wanted to continue the time-honoured family traditions by making a wine from the Monferrato terroir, with its warm, chalky soil and high mineral content. This is a classic, big wine with fine structure and power, while retaining the delicious juicy fruit of the Barbera grape. The wine matured for a year in French oak barrels and has the right balance of richness and elegance. Good oak complexity, full-bodied with spice and freshness and a long, satiating finish.
Following a series of difficult vintages, mainly provoked by the challenges of climate change - drought, frost, mildew, heatwaves, hail - to cite just a few examples, you may have noticed how different many vineyards look today compared to the tightly manicured rows of a decade ago. Today wine growers are questioning the traditional way of safeguarding the health of their vines that used synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides to grow grapes.
Last weekend, I took advantage of the rain and cold to snuggle up with my favourite part of our yearly wine guide, the “Kelder Restjes” or “Fonds du Cave.” These are the wines that we only have left in small quantity, and it understandably is the first part of the wine guide that our clients dive into.
This question has been on my mind a great deal recently. Last year we saw Burgundy wine prices skyrocket and the trend has continued for much of this year. This year we watched as the best wines of the highly touted 2022 Bordeaux, wines such as Petrus, Lafite, Vieux Chateau Certan and Figeac sold for upwards of 20% above the previous year’s releases. Quite frankly, we wondered whether we would be able to sell some of these wines. Much to our surprise, they were the first wines to sell out; there is a sense of luxury in being able to afford the world’s best wines, which are often made in small quantities that make them rarer.