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| Type of Wine | Red |
|---|---|
| Country | Italy |
| Region | |
| Appellation | |
| Winery | |
| Vintage | 2015 |
| Grape | |
| Content (Alc) | 0.75 ltr (14.5%) |
| Drink window | 2026 - 2060 |
Low Stock
Only 3 left
The "Monfortino" is only made in the best vintages and is a selection of the best grapes from the vineyard. After the harvest, this part is also vinified separately and stored for at least 7 years in large Slovenian oak barrels. The Barolo Riserva Monfortino 2015 is now safely housed in a bottle after having been allowed to mature in barrels and bottle for almost 6 years. The 2015 Barolo Riserva Monfortino is magical. This is the first vintage to include grapes from Arione, making the blend 80% Francia and 20% Arione. With this, Monfortino returns to its origins as a multi-vineyard wine, which it largely was until 1978, when the first Monfortino was produced exclusively from Francia.
Warm aromas of plums, rose petals and spices with hints of sandalwood. A little tar. Full body, dense central palate with glorious fruit and a fantastic finish. Very, very polished and fine tannins. A great Monfortino and we will not waste any more words on this. The Montfortino is the Chateau Petrus from Piemonte. Extremely good, scarce and with an almost unlimited life. The 2015 has been awarded 98+/100 points by Parker.
FACT: The wine is in our conditioned Wine Warehouse and if you come to pick up the wine you will often also receive a nice discount . You will see your discount immediately when you choose 'Pick up' on the checkout page. We are located in Dordrecht almost next to the A16 with plenty of parking. Click here for our address.
| Type of Wine | Red |
|---|---|
| Country | Italy |
| Region | Piemonte |
| Appellation | Barolo |
| Winery | Giacomo Conterno |
| Grape | Nebbiolo |
| Biological certified | No |
| Natural wine | No |
| Vegan | No |
| Vintage | 2015 |
| Drinking as of | 2026 |
| Drinking till | 2060 |
| Alcohol % | 14.5 |
| Alcohol free/low | No |
| Content | 0.75 ltr |
| Oak aging | Yes |
| Sparkling | No |
| Dessert wine | No |
| Closure | Cork |
| Parker rating | 99 |
| James Suckling rating | 99 |
| Vinous rating | 99 |
| Tasting Profiles | Aards, Boers, Complex, Droog, Houtgerijpt, Krachtig, Mineraal, Rood fruit, Tannines |
| Drink moments | Indruk maken, Lekker luxe |
Rating
98+
Release Price
$1000
Drink Date
2026 - 2055
Reviewed by
Monica Larner
Issue Date
30th Nov 2021
Source
End of November 2021, The Wine Advocate
Monfortino was not produced in 2016 nor was it made in 2017. The jury is out on whether will see it in 2018 (but I do know that Roberto Conterno is super excited about the 2019 vintage in Barolo, speaking generally). That means that we might not see his flagship wine for a number of years. The 2015 Barolo Riserva Monfortino gives us plenty to contemplate in the meantime. First, in terms of winemaking notes, this vintage see 22% Arione fruit in the blend, with the rest from Francia. Roberto Conterno is fond of telling me that "Francia is a Barolo you drink, and Monfortino is a wine you chew." (The exact word in Italian is "masticare.") I think his comment rings especially true in this vintage that arguably shows greater concentration and fruit weight and softer or more integrated tannins overall. There is structure but minus any hard edges or bite.
Harvest was completed by mid-October, and this was a very easy and trouble-free growing season that ended with ample warmth and sunny temperatures. In fact, Roberto Conterno prefers 2015 over 2016. The wine's beautiful richness most definitely translates to the bouquet, which is expressive, buoyant and full of dark fruit character. Blackberry and blackcurrant cede to spice, smoky tar, aniseed and potting soil (after a shorter five years in oak).
We know Roberto Conterno of the Giacomo Conterno estate as one of Italy’s most talented Barolisti, a taciturn genius in the vineyard and cellar who is capable of casting out the inner soul from the Nebbiolo grape and trapping it for near-eternal safekeeping in a glass bottle. But the Roberto Conterno I met this summer had reinvented himself during the doldrums of lockdown, moving toward increasingly varied pursuits. Thanks to this total transformation, his many new identities today also make him an architect, a restaurateur, a stemware designer and the inventor of a futuristic army of robots on tank treads that will be dispatched at random throughout the Italian countryside and beyond. (Sorry folks, on this last point, I have been sworn to absolute secrecy, but I promise to say more when I can).
As I discovered this past July, there is indeed a lot of news to report from Piedmont. I visited both of Roberto’s estates, his new winery in Gattinara (Alto Piemonte) and his historic cellars in Monforte d’Alba (Barolo), to taste the 23 wines reviewed in this report. What I thought would be a quick tour became instead an epic foray into Mondo Conterno.
I left Nice, France, in early morning and drove past the flooded rice patties of Arborio to the beautiful town of Gattinara, which sits south of the Italian Alps and the Lake District west of the Sesia River. Roberto came to greet me and told me that just 24 hours earlier the area had suffered from a terrible summer hailstorm. He was still assessing damage to his Nebbiolo vines planted a short distance north of the winery on the nearby hillsides.
Roberto purchased the historic Nervi winery in 2018. (For more info on this acquisition, you can read my May 2018 article called "Italy, Piedmont: The Nebbiolo Whisperer – Roberto Conterno Buys Gattinara’s Nervi.") By buying the estate, with its 27 hectares of vines and a winery in the city center of Gattinara (with roots spanning back to the early 1900s), Roberto sent the ultimate vote of confidence in Nebbiolo-based wines made in the often-overlooked appellation of Gattinara.
The man credited with making some of Barolo’s greatest wines, and arguably its most collectable icon wine, Monfortino, had unexpectedly set up shop in Gattinara. It was a move driven purely by instinct and passion.
His first step was to design and construct a new, state-of-the-art winery. No expense was spared, and Roberto reproduced the breakthrough technology we can admire today at his home-base winery in Monforte d’Alba in Barolo. In addition to the modern fermentation area and aging cellars, some of the older cement tanks and facilities left over from the original Nervi winery were refurbished and kept in place.
Understanding that wine might not be enough to draw visitors to this undiscovered corner of Piedmont, Roberto converted the front offices of the old Nervi winery into a restaurant called Cucine Nervi. It serves regional dishes with a contemporary twist. A smooth wooden counter made with imported kauri wood from New Zealand surrounds an open kitchen where you can watch the talented chef Alberto Quadrio and his team at work. The restaurant wine list of course offers an enviable collection of Conterno Neri and Giacomo Conterno recent releases and back vintages.
Roberto had prepared a beautiful tasting for me in the glass-enclosed visitors’ room with views of the barrel fermentation area below. From the Conterno Nervi portfolio, I tasted the 2018, 2017 and 2016 vintages of his Gattinara, plus the 2018 and 2016 vintages of his two single-vineyard wines, Molsino and Valferana. These wines were not made in 2017, and fruit from these sites went into the classic Gattinara instead. I also tasted the Nebbiolo-based rosé as well as the rosé metodo classico sparkling wine.
“Gattinara beats Barolo three to one in the 2018 vintage,” he tells me. “Nebbiolo is crazy sensitive to place, and the 2018 vintage gave beautiful tannic structure here, making for complete wines.”
Following his presentation from Conterno Nervi, Roberto poured wines from his Barolo brand, Giacomo Conterno. I had previewed many of these wines over the past years during my annual barrel tastings, but this was my first opportunity to taste the finished products. The lineup included the 2019 Barbera Vigna Cerretta and the 2019 and 2018 vintages of Barbera d’Alba Vigna Francia.
In terms of Barolo, we sampled the 2017 and 2016 vintages of Barolo Cerretta, Barolo Arione and Barolo Francia. To conclude, he poured the 2014 and the 2015 Barolo Riserva Monfortino. Monfortino was not made in 2016 or 2017, and he hadn’t yet decided if he will make the wine in 2018.
“Barolo beats Gattinara in 2019; and in 2020, the two regions are about the same,” he says. “I love 2019 in Barolo. The season saw two full months of beautiful weather before harvest. The 2019 vintage made long-term wines with extra concentration and structure. The 2020 vintage has more obvious fruit and less structure compared to 2019.”
Roberto Conterno often takes conventional wisdom regarding a vintage and turns it on its head. He showed extreme confidence in the 2014 vintage, calling it “the vintage of the century”; meanwhile, it was largely panned by his peers because of summer rains and below average temperatures. That counterintuitive approach, which is part mischievous and part moxie, had him cheering for 2015 over the widely applauded 2016 vintage. Indeed, he had originally made one barrel of a possible 2016 Monfortino, but that wine ultimately went to his Barolo Francia instead.
The message delivered loud and clear this summer is that Roberto Conterno is especially excited about his 2019 Barolo wines now in barrel.
As a side gig, Roberto Conterno designs stemware. In 2017, he introduced his Sensory glass (which I use daily for all my professional tastings of reds and whites) with its extra wide balloon, soft tulip curve and short stem for better stability. This summer, I tasted sparkling wine from his newest glass, Symphony, introduced in 2021.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
99
Drinking Window
2025 - 2045
From: 2017 Barolo, Part 2: The Late Releases (Oct 2021)
The 2015 Barolo Riserva Monfortino is magical. This is the first vintage that includes fruit from Arione, so the 2015 is 80% Francia and 20% Arione. That marks a return to Monfortino as a multi-vineyard wine, which it mostly was until 1978, when the first Monfortino from Francia was made. The combination of sites works so well. I remember tasting the 2015 as separate components and seeing what exactly the Arione piece adds, and that is aromatic explosiveness, texture and breadth. Rose petal, mint, sage, tobacco and cedar lend complexity. More than anything else, though, I am blown away by how utterly delicious the 2015 is. Of course, the 2015 will be better in time, but its pedigree is plainly evident today. Roberto Conterno gave the 2015 just five years in cask, the shortest time in wood for any Monfortino in recent memory, maybe ever. Like most producers around the world, Conterno is thinking deeply about what the optimal period of time in oak is. As for the 2015, it is a flat-out stunner in every way.
- By Antonio Galloni on October 2021
Roberto Conterno showed me a wide range of wines during my most recent visit. Conterno shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, it is quite the opposite; the pace of innovation has never been faster. Work on an expansion to the Monforte cellar is slated to begin shortly. At Nervi, the renovated winery melds tradition with innovation to a degree that is breathtaking. As if that were not enough, Nervi now boasts a world-class restaurant, with a wine list to boot. In terms of the wines, the 2017 Barolos are unbelievably elegant and refined. They are also incredibly expressive of site. The 2015 Monfortino, the first to include fruit from Arione, is even better from bottle than it was from barrel. I also tasted the 2018 Gattinaras from Nervi. They are exceptional. A little bird told you.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
Sign in to unlock professional wine reviews from world-renowned critics
Giacomo Conterno is an iconic Italian wine producer based in the Barolo wine region of Piedmont, Italy. The winery is known for its traditional winemaking practices and dedication to producing high-quality Barolo's.
The winery was founded in 1908 by Giacomo Conterno in the town of Monforte d'Alba, located in the heart of the Barolo wine region in Piedmont, Italy. In its early years, the winery focused on making wines from Nebbiolo, the main grape variety used in the production of Barolo. After the death of Giacomo Conterno in 1930, his son Giovanni Conterno took over the estate. Giovanni continued the family tradition of producing high quality Barolo's. An important milestone for the winery was the acquisition of the Cascina Francia vineyard in the 1970s. Located in the municipality of Serralunga d'Alba, this vineyard became an important source for some of Giacomo Conterno's most prestigious wines. In the 1980s, a divorce occurred within the Conterno family, leading to the creation of two separate wineries, Giacomo Conterno and Aldo Conterno. Aldo, Giovanni's brother, subsequently founded his own successful winery.
Giacomo Conterno, under the leadership of Giovanni's son Roberto Conterno, continued the family's focus on traditional winemaking methods.
Giacomo Conterno is often associated with the traditional style of Barolo production. Traditional Barolo is characterized by longer maceration periods and aging in large Slavonian oak barrels. These practices contribute to wines with complex flavors, firm tannins and excellent aging potential. It also has to do with the specific vineyards of the winery. The winery is located in the municipality of Monforte d'Alba, one of the most important areas within Barolo. Giacomo Conterno's specific vineyards include some of the best crus (individual vineyards) in the region, including the famous Cascina Francia vineyard. The estate's dedication to specific vineyards emphasizes the importance of terroir in the production of their wines. The Cascina Francia vineyard is also particularly important to Giacomo Conterno. The wines produced from this vineyard are highly sought after for their depth, structure and aging potential. Cascina Francia has been a major source for some of the estate's most prestigious Barolo wines.
Giacomo Conterno is known for his minimalist and traditional winemaking approach. The winery typically uses long maceration periods, maturation in large Slavonian oak barrels for an extended period and minimal intervention to allow the wines to express the characteristics of the terroir. Giacomo Conterno's wines are highly regarded among collectors and enthusiasts for their complexity and ability to showcase the unique characteristics of the region. The estate has played a major role in shaping Barolo's reputation as one of Italy's finest wine regions.
The "Monfortino" is only made in the best vintages and is a selection of the best grapes from the vineyard. After the harvest, this part is also vinified separately and stored for at least 7 years in large Slovenian oak barrels. The Barolo Riserva Monfortino 2015 is now safely housed in a bottle after having been allowed to mature in barrels and bottle for almost 6 years. The 2015 Barolo Riserva Monfortino is magical. This is the first vintage to include grapes from Arione, making the blend 80% Francia and 20% Arione. With this, Monfortino returns to its origins as a multi-vineyard wine, which it largely was until 1978, when the first Monfortino was produced exclusively from Francia.
Warm aromas of plums, rose petals and spices with hints of sandalwood. A little tar. Full body, dense central palate with glorious fruit and a fantastic finish. Very, very polished and fine tannins. A great Monfortino and we will not waste any more words on this. The Montfortino is the Chateau Petrus from Piemonte. Extremely good, scarce and with an almost unlimited life. The 2015 has been awarded 98+/100 points by Parker.
FACT: The wine is in our conditioned Wine Warehouse and if you come to pick up the wine you will often also receive a nice discount . You will see your discount immediately when you choose 'Pick up' on the checkout page. We are located in Dordrecht almost next to the A16 with plenty of parking. Click here for our address.
| Type of Wine | Red |
|---|---|
| Country | Italy |
| Region | Piemonte |
| Appellation | Barolo |
| Winery | Giacomo Conterno |
| Grape | Nebbiolo |
| Biological certified | No |
| Natural wine | No |
| Vegan | No |
| Vintage | 2015 |
| Drinking as of | 2026 |
| Drinking till | 2060 |
| Alcohol % | 14.5 |
| Alcohol free/low | No |
| Content | 0.75 ltr |
| Oak aging | Yes |
| Sparkling | No |
| Dessert wine | No |
| Closure | Cork |
| Parker rating | 99 |
| James Suckling rating | 99 |
| Vinous rating | 99 |
| Tasting Profiles | Aards, Boers, Complex, Droog, Houtgerijpt, Krachtig, Mineraal, Rood fruit, Tannines |
| Drink moments | Indruk maken, Lekker luxe |
Rating
98+
Release Price
$1000
Drink Date
2026 - 2055
Reviewed by
Monica Larner
Issue Date
30th Nov 2021
Source
End of November 2021, The Wine Advocate
Monfortino was not produced in 2016 nor was it made in 2017. The jury is out on whether will see it in 2018 (but I do know that Roberto Conterno is super excited about the 2019 vintage in Barolo, speaking generally). That means that we might not see his flagship wine for a number of years. The 2015 Barolo Riserva Monfortino gives us plenty to contemplate in the meantime. First, in terms of winemaking notes, this vintage see 22% Arione fruit in the blend, with the rest from Francia. Roberto Conterno is fond of telling me that "Francia is a Barolo you drink, and Monfortino is a wine you chew." (The exact word in Italian is "masticare.") I think his comment rings especially true in this vintage that arguably shows greater concentration and fruit weight and softer or more integrated tannins overall. There is structure but minus any hard edges or bite.
Harvest was completed by mid-October, and this was a very easy and trouble-free growing season that ended with ample warmth and sunny temperatures. In fact, Roberto Conterno prefers 2015 over 2016. The wine's beautiful richness most definitely translates to the bouquet, which is expressive, buoyant and full of dark fruit character. Blackberry and blackcurrant cede to spice, smoky tar, aniseed and potting soil (after a shorter five years in oak).
We know Roberto Conterno of the Giacomo Conterno estate as one of Italy’s most talented Barolisti, a taciturn genius in the vineyard and cellar who is capable of casting out the inner soul from the Nebbiolo grape and trapping it for near-eternal safekeeping in a glass bottle. But the Roberto Conterno I met this summer had reinvented himself during the doldrums of lockdown, moving toward increasingly varied pursuits. Thanks to this total transformation, his many new identities today also make him an architect, a restaurateur, a stemware designer and the inventor of a futuristic army of robots on tank treads that will be dispatched at random throughout the Italian countryside and beyond. (Sorry folks, on this last point, I have been sworn to absolute secrecy, but I promise to say more when I can).
As I discovered this past July, there is indeed a lot of news to report from Piedmont. I visited both of Roberto’s estates, his new winery in Gattinara (Alto Piemonte) and his historic cellars in Monforte d’Alba (Barolo), to taste the 23 wines reviewed in this report. What I thought would be a quick tour became instead an epic foray into Mondo Conterno.
I left Nice, France, in early morning and drove past the flooded rice patties of Arborio to the beautiful town of Gattinara, which sits south of the Italian Alps and the Lake District west of the Sesia River. Roberto came to greet me and told me that just 24 hours earlier the area had suffered from a terrible summer hailstorm. He was still assessing damage to his Nebbiolo vines planted a short distance north of the winery on the nearby hillsides.
Roberto purchased the historic Nervi winery in 2018. (For more info on this acquisition, you can read my May 2018 article called "Italy, Piedmont: The Nebbiolo Whisperer – Roberto Conterno Buys Gattinara’s Nervi.") By buying the estate, with its 27 hectares of vines and a winery in the city center of Gattinara (with roots spanning back to the early 1900s), Roberto sent the ultimate vote of confidence in Nebbiolo-based wines made in the often-overlooked appellation of Gattinara.
The man credited with making some of Barolo’s greatest wines, and arguably its most collectable icon wine, Monfortino, had unexpectedly set up shop in Gattinara. It was a move driven purely by instinct and passion.
His first step was to design and construct a new, state-of-the-art winery. No expense was spared, and Roberto reproduced the breakthrough technology we can admire today at his home-base winery in Monforte d’Alba in Barolo. In addition to the modern fermentation area and aging cellars, some of the older cement tanks and facilities left over from the original Nervi winery were refurbished and kept in place.
Understanding that wine might not be enough to draw visitors to this undiscovered corner of Piedmont, Roberto converted the front offices of the old Nervi winery into a restaurant called Cucine Nervi. It serves regional dishes with a contemporary twist. A smooth wooden counter made with imported kauri wood from New Zealand surrounds an open kitchen where you can watch the talented chef Alberto Quadrio and his team at work. The restaurant wine list of course offers an enviable collection of Conterno Neri and Giacomo Conterno recent releases and back vintages.
Roberto had prepared a beautiful tasting for me in the glass-enclosed visitors’ room with views of the barrel fermentation area below. From the Conterno Nervi portfolio, I tasted the 2018, 2017 and 2016 vintages of his Gattinara, plus the 2018 and 2016 vintages of his two single-vineyard wines, Molsino and Valferana. These wines were not made in 2017, and fruit from these sites went into the classic Gattinara instead. I also tasted the Nebbiolo-based rosé as well as the rosé metodo classico sparkling wine.
“Gattinara beats Barolo three to one in the 2018 vintage,” he tells me. “Nebbiolo is crazy sensitive to place, and the 2018 vintage gave beautiful tannic structure here, making for complete wines.”
Following his presentation from Conterno Nervi, Roberto poured wines from his Barolo brand, Giacomo Conterno. I had previewed many of these wines over the past years during my annual barrel tastings, but this was my first opportunity to taste the finished products. The lineup included the 2019 Barbera Vigna Cerretta and the 2019 and 2018 vintages of Barbera d’Alba Vigna Francia.
In terms of Barolo, we sampled the 2017 and 2016 vintages of Barolo Cerretta, Barolo Arione and Barolo Francia. To conclude, he poured the 2014 and the 2015 Barolo Riserva Monfortino. Monfortino was not made in 2016 or 2017, and he hadn’t yet decided if he will make the wine in 2018.
“Barolo beats Gattinara in 2019; and in 2020, the two regions are about the same,” he says. “I love 2019 in Barolo. The season saw two full months of beautiful weather before harvest. The 2019 vintage made long-term wines with extra concentration and structure. The 2020 vintage has more obvious fruit and less structure compared to 2019.”
Roberto Conterno often takes conventional wisdom regarding a vintage and turns it on its head. He showed extreme confidence in the 2014 vintage, calling it “the vintage of the century”; meanwhile, it was largely panned by his peers because of summer rains and below average temperatures. That counterintuitive approach, which is part mischievous and part moxie, had him cheering for 2015 over the widely applauded 2016 vintage. Indeed, he had originally made one barrel of a possible 2016 Monfortino, but that wine ultimately went to his Barolo Francia instead.
The message delivered loud and clear this summer is that Roberto Conterno is especially excited about his 2019 Barolo wines now in barrel.
As a side gig, Roberto Conterno designs stemware. In 2017, he introduced his Sensory glass (which I use daily for all my professional tastings of reds and whites) with its extra wide balloon, soft tulip curve and short stem for better stability. This summer, I tasted sparkling wine from his newest glass, Symphony, introduced in 2021.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
99
Drinking Window
2025 - 2045
From: 2017 Barolo, Part 2: The Late Releases (Oct 2021)
The 2015 Barolo Riserva Monfortino is magical. This is the first vintage that includes fruit from Arione, so the 2015 is 80% Francia and 20% Arione. That marks a return to Monfortino as a multi-vineyard wine, which it mostly was until 1978, when the first Monfortino from Francia was made. The combination of sites works so well. I remember tasting the 2015 as separate components and seeing what exactly the Arione piece adds, and that is aromatic explosiveness, texture and breadth. Rose petal, mint, sage, tobacco and cedar lend complexity. More than anything else, though, I am blown away by how utterly delicious the 2015 is. Of course, the 2015 will be better in time, but its pedigree is plainly evident today. Roberto Conterno gave the 2015 just five years in cask, the shortest time in wood for any Monfortino in recent memory, maybe ever. Like most producers around the world, Conterno is thinking deeply about what the optimal period of time in oak is. As for the 2015, it is a flat-out stunner in every way.
- By Antonio Galloni on October 2021
Roberto Conterno showed me a wide range of wines during my most recent visit. Conterno shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, it is quite the opposite; the pace of innovation has never been faster. Work on an expansion to the Monforte cellar is slated to begin shortly. At Nervi, the renovated winery melds tradition with innovation to a degree that is breathtaking. As if that were not enough, Nervi now boasts a world-class restaurant, with a wine list to boot. In terms of the wines, the 2017 Barolos are unbelievably elegant and refined. They are also incredibly expressive of site. The 2015 Monfortino, the first to include fruit from Arione, is even better from bottle than it was from barrel. I also tasted the 2018 Gattinaras from Nervi. They are exceptional. A little bird told you.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua...
Sign in to unlock professional wine reviews from world-renowned critics
Giacomo Conterno is an iconic Italian wine producer based in the Barolo wine region of Piedmont, Italy. The winery is known for its traditional winemaking practices and dedication to producing high-quality Barolo's.
The winery was founded in 1908 by Giacomo Conterno in the town of Monforte d'Alba, located in the heart of the Barolo wine region in Piedmont, Italy. In its early years, the winery focused on making wines from Nebbiolo, the main grape variety used in the production of Barolo. After the death of Giacomo Conterno in 1930, his son Giovanni Conterno took over the estate. Giovanni continued the family tradition of producing high quality Barolo's. An important milestone for the winery was the acquisition of the Cascina Francia vineyard in the 1970s. Located in the municipality of Serralunga d'Alba, this vineyard became an important source for some of Giacomo Conterno's most prestigious wines. In the 1980s, a divorce occurred within the Conterno family, leading to the creation of two separate wineries, Giacomo Conterno and Aldo Conterno. Aldo, Giovanni's brother, subsequently founded his own successful winery.
Giacomo Conterno, under the leadership of Giovanni's son Roberto Conterno, continued the family's focus on traditional winemaking methods.
Giacomo Conterno is often associated with the traditional style of Barolo production. Traditional Barolo is characterized by longer maceration periods and aging in large Slavonian oak barrels. These practices contribute to wines with complex flavors, firm tannins and excellent aging potential. It also has to do with the specific vineyards of the winery. The winery is located in the municipality of Monforte d'Alba, one of the most important areas within Barolo. Giacomo Conterno's specific vineyards include some of the best crus (individual vineyards) in the region, including the famous Cascina Francia vineyard. The estate's dedication to specific vineyards emphasizes the importance of terroir in the production of their wines. The Cascina Francia vineyard is also particularly important to Giacomo Conterno. The wines produced from this vineyard are highly sought after for their depth, structure and aging potential. Cascina Francia has been a major source for some of the estate's most prestigious Barolo wines.
Giacomo Conterno is known for his minimalist and traditional winemaking approach. The winery typically uses long maceration periods, maturation in large Slavonian oak barrels for an extended period and minimal intervention to allow the wines to express the characteristics of the terroir. Giacomo Conterno's wines are highly regarded among collectors and enthusiasts for their complexity and ability to showcase the unique characteristics of the region. The estate has played a major role in shaping Barolo's reputation as one of Italy's finest wine regions.
