(MONFORTE D’ALBA – CUNEO) The Giacomo Conterno company is a symbol of the excellence of Italian wine known all over the world. Its legendary Barolo Monfortino, Francia and Cerretta have indelibly marked the history of Langhe wines.
History of Giacomo Conterno’s wines
The surname Conterno is synonymous with excellence and one of the most widespread in the municipality of Monforte d’Alba, the nerve center of Barolo production. Among the various important producers who boast this surname we can mention Aldo Conterno, Claudio Conterno, Paolo Conterno, Diego Conterno and Franco Conterno.
However, there is a name that most of all dominates the Barolo denomination and that stands out like no other at the international level: Giacomo Conterno.
The origins of the success are partly historical: the Conterno family has in fact produced wine for many generations since 1800.
Subsequently, the modern company was founded by Giacomo Conterno in 1900, bottling the first labels in 1924. During the 1930s, when most of the wine was still sold in bulk, Giacomo Conterno’s wines were already recognized among the most prestigious in Italy.
His Barolo was so well known that before the advent of Italian DOC laws, the maison’s flagship selection did not even bear the name of Barolo on the bottles, but was simply sold as ‘Monfortino’.
Part of the fame of Giacomo Conterno’s wines is due to the extraordinary skills of his creator, Giovanni Conterno and now his son Roberto, who took over the reins and handed down the tradition with great humility, enthusiasm and passion.
In 2018 Roberto Conterno, after a long collaboration, acquires the Nervi winery and its 27 hectares in the Gattinara area, to embark on a new enological adventure that has Nebbiolo as its fil rouge.
Giacomo Conterno’s Philosophy of Wines
The link with the winemaking tradition of the Langhe is certainly a key element in the production of Giacomo Conterno’s wines, which Roberto responsibly guards his family winemaking savoir-faire.
For this reason, Giacomo Conterno’s wines are born with a traditionalist-inspired approach: long submerged cap macerations and fermentation in large Austrian oak vats, followed by long refinements in large barrels and in bottles.
The use of barrels for the production of typically Piedmontese Giacomo Conterno wines: favor oxygenation and evolution without extracting aromas and tannins from the wood, preserving the purity of the varietal character of the wines.
For the production of Giacomo Conterno’s wines nothing has changed here, and there is no desire to change: low yields in the vineyard, long fermentations in the cellar and long refinements. As in the case of the Monfortino which ages 7 years before being put on the market.
Terroir of Giacomo Conterno’s wines
To date, Giacomo Conterno’s wines are born from 17 hectares of vineyards distributed in the area of Monforte and Serralunga l’Alba and cultivated with Nebbiolo and Barbera.
The vines from which Giacomo Conterno’s wines are born are Guyot trained on hills with altitudes of up to 500 meters above sea level, which favor good temperature ranges, crucial for the development of the aromatic finesse of the grapes.
The lands where Giacomo Conterno’s wines are born are well defined and each cru gives a unique identity to each label.
The Arione vineyard is mainly calcareous and exposed to the South, and gives wines of great aromatic finesse and soft tannins, the more clayey Cerretta vineyard with exposure to the West, gives life to wines with intense fruity aromas of red fruits and vigorous tannins.
Finally, the Francia vineyard, which boasts calcareous soils and exposure to the West. From this vineyard Giacomo Conterno wines are born in which the best characteristics of the previous two are combined, giving life to wines of great elegance and freshness but also phenolic richness, flavor and aging potential.
This heterogeneity that can be found in Giacomo Conterno’s wines testifies once again to the extraordinary versatility of Nebbiolo, the symbolic grape of the Langhe, in renewing itself and becoming a sincere narrator of the terroir.
Wines of Giacomo Conterno
The indigenous Piedmontese vines are the protagonists of the production of Giacomo Conterno’s wines. In particular, Nebbiolo and Barbera, which find an ideal habitat in the Langhe, giving life to wines with a unique character and sensational longevity.
Among Giacomo Conterno’s wines, Barolo Monfortino is a real legend and is produced only in the best vintages and from the best Nebbiolo grapes from the cru ‘Francia’.
Giacomo Conterno’s Barolo Monfortino is a wine of extraordinary olfactory eloquence and persistence, which maximizes the enological potential of Nebbiolo in all its possible expressive nuances.
Among the best vintages of Monfortino we can cite the historic 1978, 1990, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2010, 2013, 2015. In any case, Roberto Conterno is convinced that in recent decades the greater climatic stability that characterizes the final stage of ripening of the grapes favors a more homogeneous qualitative constancy than in the past.
Since 2015 Roberto has decided to integrate Barolo Monfortino with a small portion of grapes from Arione, being the most similar to the Francia vineyard for pedoclimatic characteristics.
Of great interest in the range of Giacomo Conterno’s wines to take into consideration the very elegant Barolo and Barbera d’Alba wines, made from the crus ‘Francia’, ‘Cerretta’, and the more recent cru ‘Arione’.
To date, the production of Giacomo Conterno’s wines consists of about 62,000 bottles per year, among the most sought after and sought-after in the world.
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Information & Contacts Giacomo Conterno
Address: Località Ornati, 2 – Monforte d’Alba (CN)
Telephone: +39 017378221
Website: www.conterno.it
E-mail: conterno@conterno.it
