Gabriele Cordero

A trip to Turin in early 2023 turned up the wines of this Roero newcomer. A trained enologist with a busy consulting practice in the Langhe, this is Gabriele's own project which goes right back to his roots. He rebuilt the house of his grandparents and built a cellar, initially for experimental vinifications on behalf of clients, but which inevitably led to some tinkering and a handful of delicious bottles being released under his own name. The wine that started it all in 2019 was the superb Roero Arneis, from a 35 year old vineyard that was attached to the family house and cultivated by his grandparents. It is called Innav after Vanni, his grandfather, and the label shows the two of them in the vineyards picking grapes together. It is fermented in steel and a mere 5,000 bottles were made. It's Gabriele's largest volume wine, which gives a sense of the scale here. With a remarkably long ferment of up to 45 days, it is strikingly complex and complete, a truly exceptional arneis. The Barbera d'Alba is also entirely made in steel, and the fruit comes from Priocca in Roero, near where the cellar itself is based and just before the territory becomes Asti rather than Roero. Unlike Barolo and Barbaresco, Roero is not so famous as to have become a vine monoculture, and the label depicts the variety of the local landscape, of vineyards interspered with other crops and fields. The style is juicy, bright and energetic. Fuschia – a dialect word for 'little fog' – is the name for Gabriele's nebbiolo. The fruit comes from young vines in Priocca grown on sandy soils. Although this is labelled as Langhe Nebbiolo for obvious commercial reasons, it is clearly Roero style: juicy, strawberry and rose petal scented. Fermented in steel, this is a beautifully primary and direct interpretation of this most Byzantine of grape varieties. A mere 500 bottles were made.