It must have been tough for the irrepressible Giacomo Bologna back in those early days trying to sell Barbera.  It was a grape variety that sort of fell into the netherworld between the ubiquitous Dolcetto, the cheap wine that everyone drank everyday and Nebbiolo, the glamourous one everyone wanted.  But, dammit, Barbera was just meant to grow in the hills he farmed in the iron-rich arid Monferrato region near Asti.  Every year his old vines produced grapes that were intensely flavored, richly textured and built to last. Could he help it if no one wanted them?  Well, the thing is what goes around, comes around, and Barbera, once the source solely of local pride, is now the most widely planted and most popular grape in the region and it sells like hotcakes!  Why not?  A good Barbera has tons of character: deeply fruited, immediately accessible and always, no matter how ripe it gets, with plenty of life-giving acidity.  And if there’s one better for the money than Bologna’s Montebruna, we’ve not tasted it.  Alas, Giacomo did not live long enough to see his vision for Barbera’s success come to fruition (as it were), but his legacy lives on through the efforts of his daughter Raffaella, her brother Giuseppe and her German husband Norbert Reinisch who have not only kept the flame alive but nourished it.  The name Braida (Giacomo’s longtime nickname) is now synonymous with Asti Barbera and Montebruna, the name given to the conglomeration of vineyards Giacoma assembled in Rocchetta Tanaro, is the standard bearer for the region.  Don’t let its relatively modest price confuse you, this is some smoking good Barbera that, as one reviewer wrote ‘is an ecstatic wine that leaps from the glass with the speed of an Olympic sprinter.’ Hyperbole?  Perhaps a bit. But I do know that your red sauced pizzas and pastas, risottos and even burgers from the grill will thank you over and over again when paired alongside this dark, dusky, deeply fruited Barbera.  And your pocketbook won’t mind either!