I catch up with the ever cheerful Manuel Marchetti, winemaker and owner of the historical Poderi Marcarini, as he harvests his prized Nebbiolo vineyard of Brunate; a vineyard that first appeared on a Barolo label in the vintage of 1934, before the village of La Morra even received running water!

Poderi Marcarini remains doggedly traditional in its approach to making (Nebbiolo) wines; a conviction born of a long history and years of experience. While many of his modernist neighbours use rotofermentors to stew their fruit, Manuel uses the time-honoured practices of cement and large old slavonian oak botti to fine tune his two Barolo single-vineyard wines: the perfumed La Serra, from higher up the slope closer to the village, and the brawnier, balsamic Brunate from lower down, as he explains here…