Barolo Rocche Costamagna, Rocche dell Annunziata 2014

The jewel in the crown of their 14ha is one of the great Crus of the Langhe, Rocche dell’Annunziata. A glorious rendition Alessandro makes, too! Both the regular and the Riserva offer floral rose-tinted scents, the latter being from a plot on the highest part of the hill that imparts more structure and minerality to the wines. Winemaking is traditional – the wine stays twenty days on the skins after fermentation, followed by 24 to 36 months ageing in 30hl Slavonian oak casks. Alessandro has truly taken quality at this fine estate to great heights, producing wines of ravishing charm, nuance and elegance.

There can be few family wineries in the world today with such a long history dedicated to bottling and selling their own production. On May 15, 1841 the police office of the Royal Military Command in Alba granted Luigi Costamagna, son of the estate’s founder Francesco Antonio Costamagna, an official licence “to retail the wine produced from his own vineyards” in La Morra. In 1911, Francesco Costamagna and his son Riccardo were awarded a gold medal at the “Gran Premio dell’Esposizione Internazionale di Torino” for fifty years of winemaking. When Francesco died, Riccardo took over from his father with the help of his wife Maddalena. Riccardo died in the 1930s prompting Maddalena to sell all of the vineyards that were outside of La Morra. From the remaining La Morra vineyards grapes were grown for selling on to other winemakers. Some wines were produced but these were for family consumption. In the late 1960s, Maddalena’s niece, Claudia Ferraresi, together with her husband Giorgio Locatelli, restarted the commercial winemaking activity, planted new vineyards and modernised the old winery. Since the mid-1980s their son Alessandro Locatelli has been managing the winery with the help of agronomist Gian Piero Romana and enologist Giuseppe Caviola.