Piedmont Club: May 2026

This is a special Piedmont club for a few reasons! For one, our Piedmont immersive trip takes place this month in Barolo, so follow our Instagram (@denverwinemerchant) for lots of Piedmont content between May 16 and May 24. 

Secondly, we're featuring 2 and half incredible wines! The two bottles, which I'm extremely excited about, didn't quite add up to my usual budget so everyone gets their choice of a bonus 375ml bottle of La Spinetta Barbera or Moscato. Let's get to the wines.

Borgogno e Carbone Langhe Nebbiolo Ø.L.m.Ø 2023

Borgogno e Carbone is one of a handful of exciting new producers in Piedmont who more and more are making wines styled more like Pinot Noir from Nebbiolo. The emphasis isn't power and grip but perfume and silk, and I love the results. The brand is owned by the two owners More e Macine -- one of the best places for agnolotti and Barolo in La Morra, as they decided in 2019 to stop selling their family vineyard fruit to other producers and make it themselves. They have two excellent young winemaking consultants on board and use the wines as the "house" wine of the restaurant, though the list is quite extensive. 

The Ø.L.m.Ø is the slightly more expensive of the two Langhe Nebbiolos they produce, and it comes from a single site in Verduno, the Volnay of Barolo if you will. Verduno is the northernmost town of the zone and known for aromatics and lighter wines from it's lower elevation sites near the river with sand sometimes making an appearance in the soils. The Rocche dell'Olmo cru is on the border with La Morra and especially known for the sand, and when Nebbiolo has sand it softens and brightens. 

The wine spends a moderate 8 months in neutral oak, well below the 18 required to be labelled Barolo. But don't let this wine fool you into thinking it's a standard Langhe Nebbiolo - many of those see no oak at all and are from inferior vineyard sources. This wine is truly a baby Barolo and could age for quite a few years, but I recommend popping this soon to enjoy the freshness inherent in the wine. We'll be featuring 2023 Barbaresco in the club soon as well, and early glimpses of the vintage suggest it will be spectacular.

Cantine Garrone Prünent Diecibrente 2022

Here we are leaving the Langhe in southern Piedmont and going all the way to the north. This wine comes from Valle Ossolane, a tiny Alpine region tucked in the piece of Piedmont with Valle d'Aosta to the west and Switzerland to the east. The total planted area in this DOC is minimal at under 40 acres, and most sites are on slopes of glacial soils. This one is the top wine produced by Cantine Garrone and highlights a single terroir at approximately 1700 feet over the town of Domodossola. We also have yet another name for Nebbiolo in Prünent, the local name for the grape. 

Garrone is the only producer in this area large enough to export any significant quantity of wine, but the production is still tiny. In fact, the name Diecibrenti comes from the original quantity produced of this wine which was 10 "brenti" - a local term for 50L of wine. So the total production was 500 liters per year, but they've since included a couple other blocks in the same old vine vineyard and now make about 2,000L of this Alpine nectar every vintage. 

We are lucky any makes it to Colorado! This drinks more like Valtellina than Barolo - bright red fruits and huge rose petal aromatics compliment medium tannins and bright acidity. This is an excellent wine for medium weight, savory foods, and offers a rare glimpse into the unique terroir of the area. For fans of this wine or those who want a preview - we also just received their entry level red which blends a few grapes into the Nebbiolo and is a mere $26 on the shelf.

That's all for this month - see you in July!