Fontanabianca, Nebbiolo, Barbaresco DOCG, Piedmont, Italy 2021

100% Nebbiolo

Elegant and harmonious nose. Flavors of plum and mushroom, with hints of cherry skin. Full-bodied and dry with silky tannins and a fresh finish.

Young winemaker Matteo Pola, the son of Fontanabianca’s founder Aldo Pola, has wowed critics of all stripes in recent years with the stunning wines he has been making. But it’s not hard to understand why: The family is blessed, as he will be the first to tell you, with some of the best vineyard sites in the village of Neive in the heart of the Barbaresco appellation.

Fontanabianca (so named because it looks out on a natural spring, the “white fountain”) sources grapes for one of its top wines from the Bordini cru, one of Barbaresco’s rare examples of a sorì, a dialectal word that denotes a site with ideal exposure (sorì means “a place where sunlight arrives first, early in the morning”).