Barbaresco Riserva

A Borgogno Barbaresco, a wine the house no longer makes. The label reads Vino Barbaresco Denominazione d'Origine Controllata, Antichi Vigneti Propri, Riserva 1964, Giacomo Borgogno & Figli, Barolo, 720 cc, 13.5 degrees. Barbaresco became a DOC in 1966 and the company took the name Giacomo Borgogno & Figli in 1967 (house timeline), so this bottle was labelled no earlier than that, years after the harvest. Late release is the house's way: it says Cesare Borgogno chose to leave half of the Barolo Riserva in the cellar and sell it twenty years later, and Giorgio Boschis told Wine Spectator in 2008 that the house kept back around 20 percent of a good vintage; whether the Barbaresco was held under the same regime the house does not say. "Antichi Vigneti Propri", own old vineyards, is a house label line that also appears on the Barolo Riservas of the period; which Barbaresco sites those vines were, and when the line ended, is not documented either, though a 1947-1988 vertical of the Barbaresco Riserva has been tasted and written up, and Wine Spectator records that in the 1960s the house bought grapes from many small growers for its Barolo, Barbera and Dolcetto, without mentioning Barbaresco. Old-vintage library bottles from the cellar are reported (Antonio Galloni, writing on the 1961 Barolo Riserva) to be decanted off their sediment, topped up with wine of the same vintage and re-corked before sale. Contemporary Italian critics counted 1964 among the great Piedmont years of the decade with 1961 and 1970, a season rescued by an exceptional autumn.