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Mario Fontana is a very cool guy.  His tiny cellar is a one-man show at the highest part of the Perno road that divides Monforte d’Alba and Castiglione Falletto, right next to ‘Reppublica di Perno,’ one of our favorite restaurants in the area. The laconic but genial Mario calls himself a ‘traditional iconoclast’ who has, over the years, eschewed several lucrative opportunities to ply his winemaking trade with bigger, fancier cantinas in order to concentrate solely on making his own wines, his own way, at tiny Cascina Fontana. Mario is totally committed to making his three-total-cask production of Barolo wholly within the confines of the region’s most time-honored traditions.  He is, after all, related by marriage to the Mascarello family of Barolo, and just like his late in-law uncle Bartolo and his cousin Maria-Theresa, he would rather do things the way they’ve always been done in Barolo than follow any fad or fashion.  And his wines definitely show that sense of rugged individualism.  Mario farms three different vineyards- two in nearby Castiglione Falletto on the other side of the road from his cantina (Villero and Vigna Valletti, the iconic parcel within Mariondino MGA) that have long been in the Fontana family, and a third, in the Giachini MGA in La Morra, that came into the family through Mario’s wife, Luisa.  Each harvest, he fills his three beautiful old Slavonian oak casks with Nebbiolo- one cask each from the two Falletto vineyards and the third with Giachini.  Over the three years it takes to cellar the wine that will become Barolo, he gradually moves portions from each of the Falletto casks into the Giachini cask, eventually expanding into the second cask and gradually assembling two full casks of Barolo DOCG from the three casks he started with.  In special years, he blends the two Falletto casks to make one cask of a purely Falletto Barolo, a truly special Riserva-level wine that’s Mario’s pride and joy.  Mario says he could easily make three single-vineyard wines but ‘that’s not how it should be done.’ ‘I’m a traditionalist, not a classicist,’ he says while thieving some wine from the Villero cask for us, ‘and the tradition in Barolo is to make a blended wine.’ And he does such a good job at it too!  His Barolos are unfailingly beautiful, stylish wines with amazing personality and stunning persistence of flavor.  In 2019, the vintage was so good he just couldn’t not create a Falletto bottling and here it is- all 18 bottles of it.  The 2019 Barolo del Comune di Castiglione Falletto is as pure, deep and muscular a rendition of Nebbiolo as you will ever find- the kind of wine one could use in a seminar and say ‘this is what Falletto Barolo should taste like.’ Villero always brings that slightly exotic wild herb-patchouli-headshop aroma to the party and provides considerable heft, mid-palate punch and texture.  The Valletti from Mariondino sits right on Falletto’s border with Monforte d’Alba and really brings the power, and, in a classic vintage like 2019, its chunky, iron-y tannins and scorched earth are very much in evidence.  Together they are a pair of strong personalities that work wonderfully together to create a complete, nuanced Barolo that evokes an older, more classical era of winemaking.   And while it tasted great in the cellar, I truly bonded with the 2019 over a traditional lunch in Perno where it came alive and, when we compared it with a 1975 Nebbiolo Mario’s father made, you can see the path this wine has taken over the years.  Under the radar, still well priced for a wine of this quality, and a wine I think will cellar wonderfully, I purchased all I could get in California- but that’s not much!  Let me know if you need any! - JR