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David Fletcher
Barbaresco, Italy, Australia6 wines4.3 avg
51
An Australian winemaker in Barbaresco - three crus around Neive, traditional Nebbiolo with an outsider's precision, and one of the most unusual origin stories in Piedmont.
David Fletcher is an Australian who moved to Piedmont to make Nebbiolo - which is not the usual direction of traffic. He is based near Neive, in the Barbaresco zone, and has been producing wine since the early-to-mid 2010s. The project is very small: roughly a thousand to two thousand cases total, sourced from trusted growers on long-term contracts rather than estate-owned vineyards.
The Barbaresco bottlings, all from Neive's orbit:
- Barbaresco Roncaglie - single cru
- Barbaresco Faset - single cru, dense and structured (the same cru as Piercarlo Culasso)
- Barbaresco Starderi - single cru
- Barbaresco Recta Pete - a multi-vineyard blend drawing on Roncaglie, Faset, Starderi and other parcels depending on the vintage
Also Langhe Nebbiolo, Langhe Chardonnay (barrel-fermented, Burgundy-inspired), and Nebbiolo "The Minion" (a more accessible, earlier-drinking Nebbiolo). Indigenous yeasts, extended maceration, aging in large Slavonian botti and some French oak.
Fletcher describes his approach as traditional with an outsider's perspective. The advantage of not having grown up in the Langhe is a particular alertness to what makes each site different - no inherited assumptions about what Barbaresco "should" taste like, just close attention to what each cru actually does. The disadvantage is having to earn trust in a zone where families have been growing Nebbiolo for a century. His wines suggest he has.
