Nose
Notes of sweet dark fruits and aromatic herbs on the nose.
Palate
Powerful and rich on the palate, the Barbera D’Alba 2019 shows succulent layers of strawberry, cherry, white pepper, anise, and tobacco, perfectly balanced with mineral graphite notes. The finish is long.
Growing Conditions
The grapes were grown in six different vineyards from three different areas. Four vineyards are in Barolo, on chalky, Tortonian soils, facing either south-east or south-west, with vines planted between 1968 and 2004. Here the chalky soil results in delicately aromatic wines, with high acidity and red berry characters. The two vineyards planted in Novello and Sinio are on Helvetian soils, giving wines with ripe, black fruit characters, balsam and minerality, with firmer tannins.
2019 was marked by an early bud burst, late flowering and a slow and progressive ripening that turned this vintage into one of the longest and latest of the decade. Early winter snows and moderate rain falls throughout the year preserved the water reservoirs and laid the conditions for a balanced phenolic ripening. Thankfully, the Langhe were spared from both the April frost and the dramatic heat of late June, albeit a severe hailstorm hit the vineyards on September 5th. Low yields from flowering, slow ripening and a late harvest, give excellent maturity profile and great acidity to the wines.
Harvest
The fruit was harvested in October.
Winemaking
Each parcel was individually fermented so to respect the personality and qualities of each site, for an average time of 20 days, at free temperature below 30°C. While Barbera is often treated with shorter and vigorous macerations, Vajra work with gentle punch downs and cap rinsings for longer periods, in order to capture all the fragrance of the grapes. Malolactic fermentation took place in the stainless steel vats and was followed by racking.
Appearance
Bright violet in colour.
