Gattinara Tre Vigne

Tre Vigne is Travaglini's selection Gattinara, Nebbiolo drawn from three vineyards whose names have stayed on the blend since at least the mid-2000s: Permolone, Lurghe and Alice. The US importer Palm Bay describes them as a ladder of sites - Lurghe at 280 metres on clay over sediment washed down from the area's ancient volcanoes, Permolone a flat, rocky, granitic parcel at 320-350 metres, and Alice the highest at 420 metres, its slopes facing southeast to southwest and cooled by breeze off the hills. The 2012 spent 40 months in elevage, at least three years of it in oak botti, and was bottled at the estate in Gattinara at 13.5% alcohol.

Travaglini is the biggest name in the appellation - by its US importer's count the family farms roughly half of the Gattinara DOCG's vineyard area. Clemente Travaglini began producing in the 1920s as the first winery in the centre of the town, his grandson Giancarlo took over in 1958 and gave the house its patented crooked bottle, and since 2004 Cinzia Travaglini, fourth generation, has run it with her husband, winemaker Massimo Collauto; their daughters Alessia and Carolina joined in 2019.