Simone Scaletta's Barolo Chirlet has clear bright cherry and violet colours. Orange blossom scent with the hint of autumnal mushrooms, giving way to a broad and deep palate of open morello cherries and something of the earth. Good, powerful, well balanced tannins, for drinking now but will age for at least 10 years. Drink this with mushroom dishes, and definitely game.

Barolo needs the slopes, the autumnal mists, the struggle to get the Nebbiolo ripened, and it can be a struggle even in these times of global warming. But things have improved. Old Barolo was for the most part a little too astringent, picked too early and then aged to death to get rid of the mouth splitting tannins to leave nothing but burnt out fruit and the hint of something ethereal behind the semi oxidation. But the answer was not stacks of new oak, a bit of sugar and a mix of Cab or even Barbera. It was properly cared for grapes, if not enough sun, then open up the canopy, harvest when ripe, get it to the winery early, don’t leave it on the skins forever and a day, warm the cellars a little later in the spring for a bit of malolactic fermentation, that sort of thing.

Anyway we like Simone Scaletta. He’s a big pal of our wonderful Barbera producer Alessandro Garetto, who is a top bloke, proper wine maker and coming at us from just out of the left-field. He says Simone is up for it so we are too. We’ve only just started to work with him but we think this stuff can only get better so we are very excited indeed. And so you should be as well.