Luigi Baudana

Luigi and Fiorina Baudana gave their name to, or took it from, the località Baudana - the hamlet just north of Serralunga d'Alba and the historical cru on the western slope of its hill. Luigi never knew which way round it went. It was Fiorina who pushed them to stop selling the family's grapes to the cooperatives and bottle their own.

The property passed to the Vaira family of G.D. Vajra in January 2009, to the three siblings Giuseppe, Francesca and Isidoro. How that came about is told two ways: the Vairas' account has the two families meeting in 2008, when the Baudanas were thinking about retirement, and the Vairas proposing to become guardians of the Baudanas' history rather than simply buyers of their land; another has Luigi visiting G.D. Vajra incognito, coming away impressed, and telephoning Aldo Vaira to ask whether he would buy the estate. Both agree on what followed - the old Baudana cellar is still where these Barolos are made and aged, and the name stays on the label.

It is a very small property: 4.1 hectares, of which 2.6 are Barolo and 1.5 Langhe Bianco, which makes it one of the most limited productions in the Barolo zone. Farming is certified under SQNPI, Italy's national integrated-production standard; the estate's US importer calls it organic from the 2019 vintage, which the certification on the bottles does not support. The cellar work is deliberately old-fashioned - spontaneous fermentation in open-top wood vats, long macerations with the cap submerged, ageing in Slavonian botti. The core wines are single-cru Barolos from Baudana and the adjacent Cerretta plus a commune blend from across Serralunga, alongside Langhe bottlings under the Dragon name.