Four Conversations
Fenocchio holds four vineyards. The distance between them on the map is not large. You could drive between all four in twenty minutes. The wines they produce could have come from different countries.
Claudio pours them in order. Cannubi first. Then Castellero. Then Villero. Then Bussia.
Cannubi is in the commune of Barolo village — Tortonian soil, the geological transition between austerity and generosity. The wine sits precisely in the middle: not the fragrance of La Morra, not the power of Serralunga. Something held in equilibrium.
Castellero is nearby, sandier, opens earlier. Villero is in Castiglione Falletto, iron-rich clay and limestone — a ferrous, leafy precision.
Then Bussia. Monforte. The home ground. The cru behind the yellow house where five generations of Fenocchios were born. The Helvetian limestone-marl, compact and hard, makes a wine that does not open willingly. It has the character of something that was formed under pressure over a very long time and sees no reason to hurry now.
All four made identically: long maceration, large Slavonian oak, no filtration. The technique is constant. The soil is the variable.
I ask Claudio which is his favourite.
He looks at the four glasses. The pause is long enough to be its own answer.
They are four different conversations, he says. I cannot choose between conversations.
Eleonora, across the table, catches my eye and almost smiles. She has heard this before. She will hear it many more times. She will say it herself one day, to someone sitting where I am sitting now.
Giacomo Fenocchio farms Bussia, Cannubi, Castellero, and Villero. Founded Monforte d'Alba, 1864.
