Borgogno Barolo Riserva DOCG 2013, Piedmont, Italy
Giacomo Borgogno e Figli is a historic and famed wine estate in the Italian wine region of Piedmont. It is best known for its Riserva Barolo wines, which are some of the most sought-after and expensive wines from the region.
Borgogno is also notorious for cellaring its wines for more than a decade prior to release. Alongside the Riserva, Barolo features heavily throughout the wine portfolio.
Borgogno has plots in five of the Barolo cru vineyards, including the monopole Liste. Fruit from Liste, Cannubi and Fossati is made into single-vineyard releases, and the standard and Riserva wines are made from fruit from a combination of the three.
The winery is situated in the center of Barolo town, with cellars dug into the surrounding hillside. Borgogno uses traditional winemaking methods including indigenous yeasts, long fermentations and the use of large Slavonian oak barrels. The Barolo wines spend four years in oak, except for the Riserva which gets an additional year.
The company was founded by Bartolomeo Borgogno in 1761. A hundred years later its Barolo was chosen to accompany the official lunch celebrating the unification of Italy. Cesare Borgogno, who took charge in the 1920s, began the signature policy of keeping back wines for late release. In 2008, the estate was sold to the Farinetti family.