Barbaresco, powerful red wine based on the nebbiolo grape grown around the village of Barbaresco in the piemonte region in north west Italy. For long considered very much the junior of barolo in terms of its size and the power and prestige of its wines, Barbaresco emerged from Barolo’s shadow in the 1960s to win recognition of its own striking qualities of elegance and aromatic intensity.
The wine is, in fact, a younger one than Barolo, its name appearing on labels only from 1894 when Domizio Cavazza, professor at the Oenological School of alba, founded the Barbaresco co-operative (now the much-admired Cantina di Produttori di Barbaresco) in that year. Before that the wines of Barbaresco were often blended with Barolo. Barbaresco did not enjoy Barolo’s connection with the House of Savoy and the nobility of the royal court in Turin, and suffered relative commercial obscurity until the efforts of Giovanni gaja and Bruno Giacosa in the 1960s demonstrated the full potential of the wine.
