Vajra G.D. Langhe Riesling Pétracine 2021

Vergne, the highest village in the Commune of Barolo, with vineyards planted to nebbiolo at heights of 350-400 metres, as well as to dolcetto and barbera, sees later ripening than other areas and crus, with the result that its Barolos have always been recognised as quite distinctive: wines with youthfully ample aromas, showing prominent but judicious acidity, generous fruit always lively and crisp, whose primary stylistic signature is their aromatic elegance. Expressing these qualities and ensuring their full expression in every wine is the goal of Milena and Aldo Vaira; she came from Cervere, terroir renowned for its leeks, and he from Torino, but both have been toiling since the early 1970s in the vineyards of Aldo’s father, Giuseppe Domenico, gradually increasing the area under vine to the current 40 hectares, with ten of it nebbiolo for Barolo, located in such strategic spots as Bricco delle Viole, Fossati, La Volta, Coste di Vergne, and finally succeeding in forging a unique winery style and an absolutely personal working method both in cellar and vineyard. A style steeped in elegance, if you will, that nowhere else but in Vergne could find its sublime terroir, its own “promised land,” a superb site despite being the occasional target of pitiless hailstorms. Dedicated, passionate winegrowers, but low-keyed and always sensitive to the human side of every equation in their profession as wine producers, and regarding themselves as instruments enabling nature and their environment full self-expression through their wines, the Vairas incarnated their distinctive way of thinking and working in the very concrete terms of their wine cellar, light years removed from a cold, aseptic laboratory. As friends for many years of Father Costantino Ruggeri, man of faith but a magnificent artist as well, of recognised sensitivity, they wanted their Barolos, the Bricco delle Viole and the just-debuted Albe, a cuvée of their various vineyards; their Dolcetto Coste & Fossati and the Barbera d’Alba; but the more “experimental” or “daring” wines as well, which they created to reflect the Vergne terroir, such as the cask-aged Freisa Kyé and the Langhe Bianco that renders homage to the prince of noble whites, the white Riesling; all these wines they wanted to come to fruition in a warm, exquisitely nurturing space, one enlightened, it goes without saying, by the rainbow-hued stained-glass windows crafted by Padre Costantino, within the terms of a perfect symbiosis and dialogue between Nature and humankind. A conception of wine, therefore, that springs from deep meditation, but is neither artificial nor intellectualistic, one that is striking for the depth of thought behind it as well as for the utter simplicity of its operation, free from the strutting of overweening ego.