2019 Produttori Barbaresco Riserva Ovello

Its Origins

Ovello is a fairly large vineyard of 6.58 ha, and the Produttori controls a fairly significant percentage, making this one of the most widely seen single cru bottlings from the cooperative. The vineyard lies at an altitude of between 220 and 290 meters above sea level, with the vast majority of its vines facing west or southwest. Ovello is one of the oldest crus in the lineup from the Produttori, having first been produced in the 1970 vintage, which was the second vintage in which the cooperative made single cru bottlings (after the inaugural releases in the 1967 vintage). Like all of the cru bottlings from the Produttori, the Ovello is an extremely ageworthy wine that will usually drink better at age twenty than it will be at age ten, despite its often quite precocious and plump fruit component that makes the wine accessible much earlier than when it peaks. It took a sympathetic local priest to realise the only way for the community of Barbaresco to survive, in the poverty of the late 1950's, was for the winemakers to form a co-operative. The first 19 members made their wine in the church basement, but it didn't take long for this idea to provide them with solvency as well as solidarity. Quality too, as a more secure income allowed the individual growers to maintain the high standards they aspired to. Over decades the co-operative grew to it's current membership of 52, during which time it also developed an extensive and almost bewildering array of single vineyard offerings. Until recently the traditional labelling and less-than-dynamic global marketting strategy meant Produttori was strictly the preserve of experts. Nowadays however, as the world trawls Piedmont for both it's obvious and it's hidden gems, Produttori's delightfully backward labelling and proud obsession with qualtity are revealing it as one of the world's most profoundly undervalued wine treasures.