Barbaresco Montestefano

Teobaldo Rivella works only on the Montestefano hill, and the vines start behind the family house. His father planted them in 1963. The estate is just Teobaldo and his wife Maria, and Barbaresco is nearly all they have ever made.

2022 was a brutally warm and dry year, and Rivella answered it twice. In the vineyard he cut the crop by about 15% to take some of the strain off the vines. In the cellar he kept the wine on its skins for a little less time than usual, because he did not want to extract too much. Both details come from a Vinous note written just after bottling.

The rest followed the house pattern. The fermentation ended with the cap held under the wine, and the wine then spent 32 months in cask.

A hot year, handled by doing a little less.