Piero Busso Langhe Nebbiolo 2019

Overlooked until recently – even by Piedmont enthusiasts – Cantina Piero Busso is quietly making some of Barbaresco’s most profound, yet beautifully approachable wines under Pierguido Busso.

While the Bussos have cultivated vines in Barbaresco since the 1950s, it was not until 1978 that Pierguido’s father Piero ceased the sale of his family’s Nebbiolo grapes and began making his own wine. Over the next two decades, Piero gradually added to the small parcel of land planted around the family winery in ‘Albesani’ by purchasing additional plots in ‘Mondino’ in 1985, ‘Gallina’ in 1999, and ‘San Stunet’ in 2000. 

Today, Pierguido farms 10ha of 25-to-80-year-old vines between some of the highest sites in Barbaresco’s Neive and Treiso villages. He uses tressage – the laborious and highly skilled practice of braiding the vine canopy pioneered by Lalou Bize-Leroy – to grow top-quality, organic Langhe varieties. 

Perfectly ripe fruit is carefully harvested by hand before undergoing long, slow native yeast fermentations of up to 60 days, followed by ageing in 25hl Slavonian oak barrels for 24 months. The estate’s wines are bottled without fining or filtration.

Made from young vineyards grown on richer soils in Neive, Bosso’s value-driven Langhe Nebbiolo encapsulates the estate’s immediate and elegant style.