100% Nebbiolo. The Wine Advocate-“Bartolo Mascarello remains an important domaine for hand-made artisan wines that reflect the best of the traditional style of winemaking in Piedmont. Maria Theresa Mascarello makes her Barolo pretty much just as her father did. The grapes are sourced from various estate-owned vineyards in Barolo and La Morra and co-fermented, after which the wine is aged in cask. Since 1995 Mascarello has bottled her Barolo after two and half years in oak rather than three years or more, as remains the prevailing custom among the region’s staunchest traditionalists. Not much else has visibly changed at this tiny, venerable property, but today the wines are purer, cleaner and more consistent than they have ever been. The 2006, 2007, 2008 Barolos I tasted from cask were all strikingly beautiful in their transparency and expressiveness of three very different vintages. Mascarello devotees have much to look forward to in coming years.”

Bartolo Mascarello was one of Barolo’s great traditionalists. No roto-fermentors, Limousin oak barriques or cru-designations for him. As Decanter magazine said upon his death in 2005, “[Bartolo Mascarello] never accepted any method of making Barolo other than low yields, long maceration, big oak casks and minimum intervention in the cellar. His dedication to the preservation of Barolo’s true character and above all its longevity, made him the patriarch of traditional Barolo and gained him an international cult following – with fans as diverse as the cellist and conductor Rostropovich, and the Queen of the Netherlands.” The tradition continues under his daughter, Maria Theresa, who like her father, assembles a single, anti-diluvian Barolo each year from the family’s ancient hilltop vines in Cannubi, San Lorenzo, Rue and Rocche.