Bartolo Mascarello

If you are into the best classic Italian wines, especially Barolo, you cannot ignore the name Bartolo Mascarello. This estate in the Piemonte region is famous for hewing closely to traditional methods and for making wines with a sense of place and a sense of history. For more than half a century, Bartolo Mascarello is a leading wine estate in the Langhe.

History

Rewind to 1919, when Bartolo's father, Giulio Mascarello, laid the foundation for the winery in the village of Barolo. The mission was crystal clear: to craft Barolo in the time-honored manner, blending from different vineyard sites, and to make every decision in the winegrowing and winemaking process with patience and absolute diligence. Bartolo took over the estate in the 1960s. He became the head of household and the family firm but also evolved into a kind of public figure—outspoken; sometimes controversial; always, in his mind and in the mind of his supporters, doing the right thing in winemaking as he held fast to the Barolo with character made the way his father made it. He was the strongest defender of traditional winemaking and continued the fame of creating some of the best barolo ever.

When Bartolo died in 2005 his daughter Maria Teresa took over, continueing wine making as her father did with subtle improvements. 

The Vineyards

Farming around five hectares and scattered over some of the most distinguished vineyards in Barolo and La Morra, Bartolo Mascarello works in one of the most celebrated wine regions on the planet. There’s Cannubi (the crown jewel), San Lorenzo, Rue, Monrobiolo di Bussia, and Rocche dell’Annunziata. Each plot is small, and the work is hands-on: no shortcuts, no chemicals, just manual labor on steep, tricky slopes. All the grapes are picked by hand, the outcome of months spent in the vines, pruning, tying, and worrying over the weather. And, given the character and the exceptions of each site, every vineyard may as well be a world apart. The final blend is as varied and as the vineyards themselves.

The Terroir

So what’s so special about this barolo? Cannubi’s blend of sand, clay, and limestone is a benchmark. It gives the wine a combination of power and grace. San Lorenzo is a bit higher and well drained, so the grapes are packed with flavor. Rue is cooler, so the grapes have a fresh zing. Rocche dell’Annunziata, in La Morra, has more calcareous soils, which lends the wine an elegance and a kind of salinity. By using the grapes from each and blending them, the Mascarello family aims for a wine that’s more complete and balanced than any single plot could make on its own.

The Grapes Used

At its core, the story of Nebbiolo is told through Barolo, a wine that requires attention, demand, and above all, patience. 

Way of Winemaking

This is where Bartolo Mascarello really stands out. The grapes are picked by hand and brought straight into the winery. Fermentation happens in concrete tanks with native yeast, so no commercial yeasts or other produced yeasts are used. The process is slow, often with a long soak (sometimes up to 50 days with the skins), which extracts color and flavor the old-fashioned cappello sommerso way by submerging the cap of skins. Aging is done in barriques, where the influence of wood flavors are limited.

Merging diverse vineyards is a creed they won't compromise on. In an era when most of Barolo has sprinted toward making single-vineyard bottlings, Bartolo Mascarello has never faltered. They uphold a distinctly different tradition, one that prizes not above all else the making of harmonious wine, one where vineyard strengths seem to work in tandem, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The vineyard is still central to this winemaking vision, but which vineyard is less important than the fact that they have multiple vineyards, all different, at their disposal.