Cascina Baricchi Barbaresco Riserva Rose delle Casasse 2016

The estate is run by Natale Simonetta and his wife, Francesca. Natale’s family is originally from the Varese area in Lombardia not far from Ghemme and Gattinara. His family was in the tile business, though in 1991 he had an accident while skiing and had to leave the family business. He was also on the Italian national super motocross team and had to leave that as well. After the accident, he decided to move to Barbaresco where his father had bought an estate back in 1979. It was there that Natale fell in love with wine. And while he did not graduate from enological school, he studied with the legendary Bruno Giacosa whom he feels gave him a ample and enlightened foundation for making great wine. The winery started producing wine in 1989 though the first commercial Barbaresco bottled was from the 1996 vintage. The winery makes about eight to ten thousand bottles of Barbaresco per year, which in fact is all released as Riserva. They make the previously mentioned Riserva Rose delle Casasse from a vineyard called Casasse which is in Neive though it was not granted status as an official cru or “menzioni” for the DOCG. The original vines in the vineyard were planted in 1913 and the subsequent replantings were made from massale selections from those old vines. Currently there are .4 hectare of vines from 1913, .2 planted in 2008 and .8 planted in 2009. There are some who claim that Nebbiolo Rose is genetically distinct from Nebbiolo and a separate grape entirely (though related), though others believe it is just a different clone of Nebbiolo. Natale believes the latter. Baricchi’s wines are produced in a traditional style with relatively long macerations and extended ageing in large, neutral botti. Fermentations are done with natural yeasts and last 15-18 days with pump-overs and occasionally delestage as well in years where the color is light. After fermentation, the wines are macerated for an additional 10 days or so with capello sommerso, or submerged cap, before pressing into large, neutral botti. Here, the wines are aged for a minimum of five years before being bottled.