Piedmont Club - July 2026

Piedmont Club is here, and this one pairs an established icon with a producer you'll want to get in early on.

Nebbiolo: Domenico Clerico Barolo Ginestra Ciabot Mentin 2018

This is a serious bottle from one of Barolo's most respected names, and the 2018 vintage makes it an even easier sell right now. 2018 was a cooler, wetter year in Barolo that produced lighter, more perfumed wines with softer tannins than the powerhouse 2016s or structured 2019s. That means this Ginestra Ciabot Mentin is already drinking beautifully. You don't need to cellar this for another decade to see what it's about. The fruit is pure, the tannins have resolved into something silky rather than gripping, and the aromatics (rose petal, tar, dried cherry, that classic Ginestra spice) are singing right now. If you've been intimidated by Barolo because you think everything needs 15 years in a cellar, this is your entry point. Open it with something braised and don't overthink it.

The fruit for Ciabot Mentin comes from a specific plot within the Ginestra cru, on vines planted back in 1978 at around 400 meters, south to southeast facing. Ginestra sits in Monforte d'Alba, which along with neighboring Serralunga makes up the eastern side of the Barolo zone. The soils here are Helvetian, older and more compressed sandstone and chalk, less fertile than the Tortonian marls you get over in La Morra and Barolo village to the west. That soil difference is a big part of why Monforte and Serralunga wines tend to run bigger, denser, and more tannic than the perfumed, earlier drinking style you get from the western communes. So even in a lighter vintage like 2018, you're still getting a wine with real structure underneath the freshness, it's just more approachable right now than a Monforte Barolo from a bigger year would be.

Barbera: Ca' di Press Barbera d'Alba 2023

New producer alert. Ca' di Press is a small family estate in Monforte d'Alba, run by sisters Alice and Cristina Pressenda alongside their father Bruno, who spent decades selling grapes to bigger names before the family decided to start bottling their own wine in 2018. They farm organically out of the Perno cru, production is tiny, and the wines have already caught the attention of serious critics in a short amount of time.

What I love about this Barbera is that it leans into freshness rather than richness. Historically Barbera d'Alba could get a little jammy and heavy handed, but there's a real shift happening in Piedmont right now (and honestly in red wine more broadly) toward brighter, more precise, less oaky expressions. Ca' di Press is very much part of that movement. This is vibrant, high acid, red fruit driven Barbera that's built for the table rather than for showing off. It's a great look at where a new generation of Piedmont producers is taking things, and at this price it's a no brainer.

Two wines, two different eras of Piedmont winemaking. One shows you Barolo at its most generous and ready to drink, the other shows you where the region is headed next.

That's the Piedmont Club for now. See you next release.