2012 Tre Fattori Barolo

The 2012 vintage of this wine opens with aromas of violets and roses along with hints of cherries, licorice, and leather.  Flavors of cassis and cherry almost seem secondary, however, to the overall rich deep mouthfeel that is 
balanced across the palate.  The full saturation of refreshing minerals from the Cerequio site extends to fairly rare perceptions of the wine’s full flavors throughout the upper palate during the finish. 
Tre Fattori literally means “three factors” but “fattore” also means “farm manager” in Italian.  As all of our producers are great farmers first, the great Nebbiolo fruit grown by the three families who jointly make the “Tre Fattori” wines then results in exquisite and fully flavored Barolos and Barbarescos.  The three families also have long-term contracts with some very prominent Barolo and Barbaresco producers but I suspect that the families keep their best fruit for their own wines before selling the rest of their grapes to the more “famous” producers.
 
The Tre Fattori Barolo vineyards are also located in the very highly regarded Cerequio MGA (Menzioni Geografiche Aggiuntive) below La Morra.  As grape growers love to discuss and debate the various characteristics of their growing sites, such discussions ultimately evolve into “classifications” such as in Bordeaux and the naming of Grand Cru and Premier Cru sites in Burgundy and Chablis.
 
The first classification of such sites in Barolo was by Lorenzo Fantini in 1880 and Cerequio was listed as the only “first growth” in Barolo as contrasted with the original Bordeaux classification in 1855 which list four “first growths”,  Over a hundred years later in the 1960s as more and more MGAs were defined (there are now over 100), Cerequio was still considered as being in the top five vineyard sites.