Marta Rinaldi on the 2021 Brunate.
I sat with Marta Rinaldi in the cantina on a Tuesday morning in March. The 2021 Brunate was still in botte, six months from bottling. She poured it from a wine thief into two glasses and said nothing for a full minute.
The 2021 vintage was difficult in Barolo. Late frost in April reduced yields by thirty percent across the zone. The Brunate parcel, at 400 meters on the southeast face, was hit harder than Cannubi. Marta made the decision to pick two weeks later than her neighbors, on 22 October.
The wine
The 2021 Brunate is lighter in color than the 2020. It has a transparency that Marta calls "classico" and that I would call Burgundian if I were not sitting in Piedmont. The tannins are fine-grained. There is no new oak.
"We have not used new oak since 1997," Marta says. "My father stopped because he could taste the wood in the Cannubi. I stopped because I could taste it in everything."
On the cantina
The Rinaldi cantina is unchanged since the 1950s. The botti are Slavonian oak, thirty to fifty years old. The cellar temperature holds between 13 and 15 degrees without air conditioning. The floor is packed earth.
There is no tasting room. Visitors taste at a wooden table between the botti, on the same chairs the family uses for lunch. The glasses are plain. The spittoon is a bucket.
"I do not make wine for people who want an experience. I make wine for people who want wine."
The 2021 Brunate will be bottled in September 2025. We expect to receive 36 bottles for Florida. Glass programs will be prioritized.