La Ca Nova di Rocca, 'Montefico' Vigna Bric Mentina, Barbaresco, 2021

The producer Pietro Rocca, a fourth generation grape grower began making and bottling Barbarescos in the 1970s. Today, Pietro is joined by his sons, Marco, an enologist, and Ivan, an agronomist who tends to the vineyards. This estate has quietly been making outstanding, terroir-driven Barbarescos for generations from two of the denomination's top crus, Montestefano and Montefico. The wine In terms of production, there is no temperature control during fermentation. Towards the end, Marco uses a method called steccatura, which keeps the skins submerged for a post-fermentation maceration lasting up to 15-20 days, allowing for greater extraction from the fruit. The wines are then aged in 30-hectolitre Austrian oak barrels (preferred by Marco over the more common Slovenian oak) for at least 18 months. Information Type: Red Vintage: 2021 Country: Italy Region: Piedmont Sub region: Barbaresco Grape: 100% Nebbiolo Style: Savory and Classic Sweetness: Dry ABV: 14% Drinking window: 2025 - 2041 Size: 750ml Food match: Lamb Critics Scores We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores. As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.