$33.99 with shipping included on 6 bottles or more- LIMITED 

This small estate, with its cellar just outside the town of Neive, is about as Old School as it gets. Although there is a computer, a fax and a telephone in the office these days, there is virtually no other technology in sight. The old stainless steel tanks and conical fermenting vats are so old, they’re not even temperature controlled. Other than a light switch, I don’t even think there’s an electrical outlet in the place. The property is still run by Pietro Rocca, the family patriarch who, in the early 1970s, was the first to bottle a La Ca’Nova wine. Before that, his father sold all the grapes from the Montestefano and Montefico crus he farmed near the town of Barbaresco to the Gaja family where it once formed the core of Gaja’s iconic wines. Today, along with his two sons Marco and Ivan, they bottle these two crus all for themselves, as well as making a very fine value Barbaresco blended from the two. We’ve long loved these wines and, back when our restaurant was open, we would pour the blended Barbaresco by the glass. We had a bartender who would do a little jig with a bottle doing what he called ‘the La Ca Nova.’ Besides the seminal Barbarescos made at this address, Marco and Ivan produce a lovely, delectable version of Langhe Nebbiolo for around half the price. Sourced from the same two vineyards in Barbaresco, this is simply a cuvee made from younger vines and aged for a shorter period. It underwent the same regimen as the Barbarescos, an extended maceration (18 days) following an antique tradition known as steccatura, whereby wooden planks are slid in sideways through the tank about a third of the way down to keep the fermenting cap submerged in the liquid, sort of like using something to keep a tea bag at the bottom of a teapot of hot water. This time-consuming method gently enriches the wine by extracting more color and polyphenols while keeping in check Nebbiolo’s natural tannins. After fermentation, the wine was aged in neutral 30 hectoliter casks, but rather than the Slovenian oak so common in old Barbaresco cellars like this, Pietro prefers Austrian wood. After about fourteen months in the cellar, it’s ready to go! But this is, more than anything, a ‘Baby Barbaresco,’ furthermore, a Baby Barbaresco from Montefico and Montestefano so you know there’s going to be a lot of stuffing. Bright red and very fresh on the nose, it’s redolent of dried roses, brandied cherry, cinnamon stick, bitter chocolate and new leather on a frame that tantalizingly dances between medium- and full bodied with a snappy, only-with-Nebbiolo finish. Wines like this are so much fun to drink’ they’re affordable, go great with food and can even effortlessly handle a few years in the cellar. Perfect for your next gnocchi in cheese sauce, meatballs braised in sauce or whatever else you love to cook.