2021 Cavallotto Bricco Boschis Barolo 750 ml

Cavallotto is one of Barolo’s very greatest names, and Bricco Boschis is their calling card.

Top sommeliers have long felt this way. Look no further than the temples to Italian gastronomy in Los Angeles and New York: The late Del Posto devoted a full page to verticals of Cavallotto’s wines, with 17 different bottlings from Boschis alone. Collectors are nuts about Cavallotto too, and our allocation shrinks every year, as demand for these wines skyrockets. 

For years, high-end Barolo was the greatest deal in blue-chip wine. You could get bottles that would stand with $1,000 Burgundies for a fraction of the cost. But each year, another Piedmont producer’s pricing moves into oligarch-land. 

Cavallotto looks like they might head that way soon, and for good reason. Kerin O’Keefe, writing in World of Fine Wine, declared Cavallotto's wines "have become a benchmark for impeccable Barolos that demonstrate tipicità, Barolos that respect both Nebbiolo and their terroir."

The Cavallotto family was one of the earliest in Barolo to estate-bottle (in 1948) and has been blessed with vines in Bricco Boschis since the 1920s. It’s one of the star vineyards in Castiglione Falletto—Vinous rates the site as “Outstanding,” praising the dark, muscular wines it produces—and Cavallotto owns nearly every inch of the tiny 7.3-hectare site.

The Bricco Boschis vineyard occupies a privileged position on the seam between Barolo's two distinct soil zones, the softer Tortonian marls of the western communes and the firmer Serravallian formations of the east. This creates wines that uniquely capture characteristics from both subzones.

This 2021 combines the clear fruit notes typical of La Morra and Barolo proper with botanical complexity supported by elegant, dark-chocolate tannins—it’s firmer than wines from western Barolo, yet more approachable than the structured wines of Serralunga. Crafted through traditional methods that remain unchanged from fifty years past—long maceration and aging in large barrels—it will drink beautifully in its youth and age extraordinarily well.