Manuel Marinacci has 3.5 hectares of vineyard within the Barbaresco DOCG and 1.5 hectares of hazelnuts. The hazelnuts make their way to the giant Ferrero company that makes Ferrero Rocher in nearby Alba. Unlike many of those in the Langhe, Manuel’s story is not one of long-held family land. His cellar is in the farmhouse of what was once a mixed farm with fruit, calves and grapes. The grapes were sold, as was often the practice then.
The cellar, in the former animal stalls, vividly demonstrates Manuel’s artisanal approach. He honestly says he does not want to, indeed, cannot compete with the technical excellence of some other wineries. The focus here is on working by hand in the vineyard and in the cellar, using the simplest but still highly effective, time-proven methods. Some of the large casks he uses to age the wine were bought second-hand and reconditioned, but that was twenty years ago!
Manuel’s pathway into the world of wine was unusual. As a young person, he wanted to work in forestry and studied this for a couple of years. However, it took him two hours to travel to the specialist school, and eventually he changed location. He became acquainted with winemaking students and tasted with them. A key moment came when he went to Turin for two reasons. First, to go to a Pink Floyd concert and second to apply for a job in the forestry service. In those days, you had to hand in your application in person, but he never heard anything back from the forestry service. Instead, he travelled to Champagne for experience and then completed his studies as a wine technician in the Alba wine school.
His early years of experience were in Bordeaux and Umbria and then with the Barolo-producer Serio & Battista Borgogno. It is a sign of the changing of the generations that Manuel recounts how Serio Borgogno used to go into the town square to try to persuade people to come and taste his Barolo. Then, all the demand was for Dolcetto; today, you thank the delivery driver with a bottle of Dolcetto, while Barolo and Barbaresco are in demand. The success of these wines has enabled small producers, like Marinacci, to work in traditional ways and make choices about how they live their lives. Manuel’s choice is to work independently and choose each day what he wants to do.
From his grandmother’s side of the family, Manuel had the good fortune to get secure tenure of 3.5 hectares of vineyard in one single piece in Barbaresco, for his working life. He has devoted himself to this land since 2002. For his Barbaresco wine, the Nebbiolo vines date from three periods: the oldest were planted in the 1980s; the second part he replanted in 2002 and the final part in 2010. The entire vineyard is within the Rocche Massalupo MGA (subzone) to be found in the San Rocco Seno d’Elvio zone of Barbaresco. For administrative purposes, this hamlet is within the commune of Alba. It is the least well-known and smallest zone of the denomination, yet it has always been a part of it. The first great Italian wine journalist, Luigi Veronelli, gave it the accolade of being a ‘fine cru’, the third tier of his classification of top vineyards. The soils here are a mix of limestone, marl, silt and sand, with occasional parts of clay, “like the spots on a leopard,” says Manuel. Part of the steep hillside faces west, and part is full south; the elevation is around 250 metres.
Barbaresco Rocche Massalupo is made by destemming and crushing all the fruit, with recent vintages seeing up to 20 per cent of the stalks being returned to the juice. For the last 15 years, Manuel’s preference has been to rely on spontaneous fermentation.
“I was more scolastico in the past and used selected yeast, but now I want the wine to express the vintage faithfully,” he says.
Maceration on the skins and stalks lasts about one month with rack and return to manage the cap. Fermentation is carried out in the now-treasured concrete tanks and stainless steel. The wine then spends three years or a little more in old casks, an exceptional investment of time. There is no clarification or filtering prior to bottling.
Manuel is a passionate advocate of the subzone (MGA) system. Because of it, a person who lives far away can know that the grapes for the bottle of wine in front of them were grown in a tiny, defined place; it is truly an exclusive product. Manuel’s wines reflect a particular place and the season in which the grapes were grown, and, he adds, my year as the producer. When you taste the Marinacci wines, you are tasting something very, very specific.
Wines
Manuel Marinacci Barbaresco Rocche Massalupo
2020