G.B. Burlotto - Castelletto 2021

Burlotto is the flagship producer from Barolo’s Verduno area. This is a property of enormous historic importance, fabulously delicious wines, and outstanding value. 

The Commendatore Giovan Battista Burlotto, one of Barolo's great characters, founded the estate back in 1850. The labels still commemorate the royal house of Savoy’s fondness for Burlotto wines, as well as the winery’s exclusive presence on Duke Luigi Amedeo's 1899 North Pole expedition. The Duke lost two fingers to frostbite, but wrote to the Commendatore a year and a half into the trip that “[t]he wine has been conserved in perfect condition.” G.B. Burlotto was also a pioneer of selling wine in bottle (rather than in cask or demijohn), as well as a champion of a now-rare but still-ravishing grape, Pelaverga Piccolo.

Four generations later, G.B.’s great-great-nephew, Fabio Alessandria, has changed little at the winery, doing some of the crush by foot, fermenting the wine in upright wooden vats, using indigenous yeast and little temperature control. We love these wines for their history, but even more for their diversity, their pure fruit, delicate structure, and signature Verduno floral aromatics and spicy palate.

The family's single-vineyard Barolos, especially the culty Monvigliero, are some of Piedmont's most lauded wines, critical and collector favorites year-in and year-out. But they continue to make extraordinary wines for Piedmont's more humble grapes (including Dolcetto, Barbera and of course, that Pelaverga), wines that don't attempt to turn those grapes into Nebbiolo blockbusters but rather that show their unique charms and terroir transparency. The sheer drinkability of these "lesser" wines is is tremendous, and the pricing for such special bottles from such top-rank grower, is shockingly accessible.

The harvest is carried out by hand, in order to preserve the integrity of the fruit and to allow for, when necessary, a selection of the grapes which are then transported to the cellar in 20 kg boxes. The bunches are de-stemmed and the must moved by gravity into open French oak vats where alcoholic fermentation takes place. During the maceration, delicate pumping over and punching down are carried out daily. Temperature control is utilized to prevent excessively high temperatures.

Malolactic fermentation takes place in in large French oak barrels followed by subsequent maturation for a period of 20 to 33 months depending on the vintage. After bottling, normally carried out in the summer without fining or filtering, the wine rests in the cellar for at least 9 months before being marketed.

Producer: G.B. Burlotto

Country: Italy

Region: Piedmont

Varietal: Nebbiolo

Appellation: Barolo

Vintage: 2021

Size: 750ml