OK.  Our job each Friday is to present you with true value- at whatever price point that is.  And this wine, quite honestly, is the kind of value that could make us broke!  What I mean is that we would need to sell an awful lot of $15 Barbera to pay our rent here in Dublin.  But a deal is a deal, and when one this good comes along, we need to share it!  Acconero is one of the most important names in the Monferrato hills in the Asti zone of northern Piemonte.  The Acconeros farm some 60 acres in the region around Vignale Monferrato, the heart of the region, and specialize in Barbera.  In fact, the fruit for this amazing deal, the family’s ‘basic’ Barbera d’Asti called CampoMoro, gets an inordinate amount of attention at the winery for a wine that routinely sells for around $20.  Fermented in steel but with a nice long maceration to extract the maximum amount of flavor, it ages for six months before bottling.  Campomoro acts as a sort of business card for this four-generation farming family; it’s the first Acconero wine most people will try and they want it to leave an indelible impression.  This does!  Good Barbera needs to have great fruit and this truly does- dark and plummy with hints of florals, a whiff of blueberry and a dash of Kirsch in there as well.  Light on its feet, it has plenty of Barbera’s hallmark acidity to frame it.  Sitting on a middle weight frame, it’s the ultimate go-with-everything red wine that offers up considerably more interest than just about anything else we’ve tasted from anywhere for this price!  Really, buy a case of this and you’ll find it open on the table alongside all manner of fare and, of course, all those the pasta dishes this variety loves so much.  Very highly recommended.  Put another way, it’s the best $180 you’ll spend on red wine today!  Drink now or hold for the next few years to prolong your pleasure!