The Cannubi MGA, is as familiar to Barolo fans as Romanee Conti is to Burgundy….it’s one of the largest crus in all of Barolo and its most centrally located. Perched right in front of the Castello di Barolo castle, it stretches over 90 acres (depending on who’s measuring it) and with over 30 different growers farming parcels that range from a few rows to a few hectares each, it’s a crowded hill. And not one without its share of controversy. For one thing, its boundaries have been subject to much wrangling, with disputes going back, literally, centuries. It’s most recent realignment (really a re-re-re-alignment) dates only back a few years though its boundaries have now been carefully codified and were committed to posterity in its official mapping in 2010. The vineyard is now, thanks to the incredible efforts of the estimable Chiara Boschis, completely organically farmed. It was no easy feat to convince farmers, many of whom have been farming one way for generations, to make this change, but what good, complained Chiara, would one farmer’s organic parcel be if the one next door was farmed with pesticides, fungicides and all of the other chemical inputs so common these days?  Toss a bunch of grapes into the town of Barolo and you’ll probably hit someone named Borgogno. It’s the most common name in the area and there are at least four cantinas named such within the confines of the town, all of whom farm Cannubi. The highest profile is the famous Giacomo Borgogno winery whose checkered history included ownership by an American family for many years and a brief stint by the Boschis (as in Chiara) side of the Borgognos before its eventual sale to the Oscar Farinetti, owner of Eataly. The oldest continually-held property, though, is called Serio & Battista Borgogno and has been owned by the same branch of the Borgognos since 1897. With a cantina right atop the vineyard (and the delicious Locanda Cannubi restaurant next door), S&B Borgogno is currently run by its fourth generation, Emanuela and Federica, the two daughters of Anna and Paolo Borgogno, who, in turn, were the granddaughters of the founder Francesco. That’s a lot of Borgognos! And, as you may have gathered, tradition weighs heavily in all aspects of the work done here. Now organic, like all of the farmers since 2017 who work Cannubi, their parcel of the vineyard is a very large 15 hectares and affords them the ability to bottle both 15,000 bottles of a Barolo Cannubi cru and, when circumstances are just right, like in the sturdy, structured 2013, a small amount of Cannubi Riserva as well. Macerated in a tank for a minimum of 30 days and often 40 (like the 2013 Riserva), the Nebbiolo grapes are aged for another 60 months in large casks before being bottled and rested horizontally for another six months- exactly the same winemaking process as back in the old days. The 2013 was from one of the best Cannubi harvests on record and made an absolutely ravishing bottle of Barolo. I’m lucky enough to be able to try many wines from this vineyard and I can say that the Borgognos made one of the best of this particular harvest- a broad, sweet Nebbiolo with great depth and, most importantly, a sense of elegance uncommon in these years of increased warmth and ripeness. In fact, one could use this wine to show off the many attributes of Cannubi- its intensity, its dusky plum and cherry fruit and its ripe, plush tannins. But, while I can say, thanks to its extra aging, it’s loose-knit and elegant for a Cannubi, this vineyard is always going to be about power, and there’s plenty of that on vivid display here, too. Drink now, decanted, for its hedonistic balsam-infused fruit and power or wait as long as you can to see the expansive glory of a mature Cannubi Barolo. And it’s a great price!