Piedmont

Nebbiolo is a stubborn grape. It gives tannin and acid in quantity and colour hardly at all, and for most of the twentieth century the wines made from it in the hills south-west of Alba were macerated for weeks, then left in large old barrels for years before anyone was allowed near them. The result is that Barolo and Barbaresco from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s are still here, and still recognisably alive.

Barolo comes from a handful of communes with distinct characters: Serralunga d'Alba for structure, La Morra for perfume, Monforte d'Alba for weight, Castiglione Falletto somewhere in between. Barbaresco, on the other side of Alba, tends to arrive earlier. Age brings tar, dried rose, orange peel and truffle. The years to know are 1958, 1961, 1964, 1971, 1978, 1982, 1985, 1989, 1990 and 1996, though a good grower in a quiet year will beat a poor one in a great year.

Piedmont is also where genuinely old bottles are still priced sensibly. Family estates held stock back, and a good deal of it has stayed in the same cellar since it was made, which is the best provenance there is. Old Piedmontese labels were printed on thin paper and marked easily, so a scuffed label on a bottle that has never moved tells you more, and better, than a spotless one on a bottle that has been through three sale rooms.

We check fill, label and capsule before a bottle ships, and we ask where it has been kept. Bottles older than 1990 are sold as collectible items rather than as a promise of drinkability, and we say so on every listing.