Luigi Oddero is one of the historic Barolo estates of La Morra, producing wines from estate-owned vineyards across several of the appellation’s finest communes with a philosophy that combines traditional Langhe winemaking methods with a careful attention to the individual character of each specific vineyard site. The domaine’s Barolo Vigna Rionda is its most prestigious and collectible expression, drawn from a parcel in the celebrated Rionda vineyard in Serralunga d’Alba, one of the Barolo appellation’s most historically significant and consistently high-scoring single vineyard sites. Rionda’s compact Helvetian Tortonian marl and calcareous subsoil on very steep southerly-facing slopes above Serralunga produces Nebbiolo of formidable structure, mineral depth and extraordinary ageing potential that has earned it recognition as among the very finest crus in the entire Barolo zone.

The 2013 Barolo vintage was cool and challenging, with a wet spring and difficult flowering conditions that reduced yields and delayed the growing season across the appellation. However, the wines that resulted from 2013 are now increasingly regarded as wines of exceptional purity, freshness and classical Nebbiolo character: less powerful and concentrated than the great 2010 or the generous 2016, but endowed with the kind of elegant, linear structure and pristine fruit that the finest cool-year Barolos consistently demonstrate over decades in the cellar. From the Vigna Rionda in Serralunga, where the site’s natural structural power combines with the vintage’s cool freshness, the 2013 should produce a wine of outstanding precision and mineral character.

Barolo Vigna Rionda from any quality producer represents one of the most age-worthy investments in Italian fine wine, and Luigi Oddero’s traditional approach to this exceptional site produces wines that require and reward patience over a long period. A 2013 Vigna Rionda now at twelve years from vintage, in a cool, classical style, should be entering the beginning of its optimal drinking window and will remain there for many years to come.

Garnet with a complex and evolving nose of dried rose, tar, iron, dried cherry, leather, tobacco, anise and the distinctive graphite-mineral intensity of old-vine Serralunga Nebbiolo on calcareous marl. Full-bodied with structured tannins now beginning to resolve, excellent natural acidity and a very long, mineral, classical Barolo finish. Best from 2025 through 2045.