# Barolo DOCG Gallinotto (2017)

- **Producer:** Mauro Molino
- **Colour:** red
- **Type:** still
- **Grapes:** Nebbiolo
- **Region:** Piemonte, Italy
- **Style:** Classic
- **Alcohol:** 14.5%
- **Average price:** €50
- **Vegan:** Yes
- **Contains sulphites:** Yes
- **When to drink:** Now or Later
- **Serving temperature:** 16–18 °C
- **Aromas & flavours:** cherry, plum, strawberry, rose, violet, mint, vanilla, cedar, smoke, leather, tobacco, forest floor, tar

## About this wine

Established in 1982 in Annunziata di La Morra by Mauro Molino, a graduate of the prestigious Oenology School of Alba, this estate is now run by his children, Matteo and Martina. The Gallinotto vineyard is a special single-vineyard parcel located within the Berri MGA in southwestern La Morra. In the early 1990s, Mauro Molino discovered this high-altitude, abandoned plot flanked by thick woods. Despite local skepticism due to its remote and cold location, the family painstakingly restored the vineyard. Today, it is celebrated as their recovered treasure, benefiting from dramatic diurnal shifts and calcareous clay-limestone soils at 400 to 450 meters above sea level.

## Interesting facts

- Founder Mauro Molino was initially considered crazy by locals for restoring this high, cold, and abandoned vineyard in the early 1990s.
- The Gallinotto vineyard is situated at over 400 meters altitude, making it one of the highest and coolest plots in the Barolo zone.
- The 2017 vintage received an extraordinary 98-point score from Decanter, being named one of their Wines of the Year in 2022.

## Food pairing

This full-bodied Barolo demands rich, savory dishes with high protein and fat content to soften its firm, dusty tannins. The high acidity of the Nebbiolo grape cuts through rich meats and earthy fats, while the complex, forest-floor and truffle-friendly character of the wine perfectly mirrors earthy ingredients like wild mushrooms and fresh truffles.

## Wine making process

The grapes are manually harvested in early-to-mid October with strict selection. Vinification begins with a 10 to 14-day skin-contact maceration in stainless steel vats, followed by alcoholic fermentation in temperature-controlled steel tanks for 20 days using selected yeasts. The wine is aged for 18 to 20 months in a combination of large French oak casks (30 to 50 hl) and partially in used French oak barriques. It is fined using plant-derived cellulose, making it vegan-friendly, and undergoes an additional 12 months of bottle aging before release.