From the atlas
Azienda agricola Flori di Flori Michele
At A Glance
Producer: Cantina Flori (Azienda Agricola Flori di Flori Michele) Village: Treiso Appellation: Barbaresco DOCG, Langhe DOC Grape: Nebbiolo Farming: SQNPI integrated production US Importer: Mary Taylor Wine
The Producer
The Flori family has grown Nebbiolo in Treiso for four generations. For most of that time they sold the grapes. In 2020 Michele Flori kept them.
That decision is everything the estate currently is. Cantina Flori, the trading name, now covers 20 hectares of vines in the Barbaresco DOCG zone, a substantial holding for Langhe by any measure. The label has existed for five vintages. The family's roots in the village go back a century.
The wines are distributed in the United States through Mary Taylor Wine, whose small-producer portfolio signals the estate's direction: grower-direct, low-intervention adjacent.
Place
Treiso is a hilltop commune south of the Tanaro river in Langhe, one of the four villages permitted to produce Barbaresco DOCG alongside Barbaresco itself, Neive, and San Rocco Seno d'Elvio. The soils are calcareous clay, the same Tortonian-epoch marl that defines the appellation across all four communes. Nebbiolo planted here tends toward a slightly lighter body than some expressions from the Barbaresco village hillsides, though parcel and vintage variation matters more than communal generalisations.
The Barbaresco DOCG label on a bottle tells you the grape is Nebbiolo and the wine has spent at minimum 26 months ageing from harvest, nine of them in wood. Treiso on the label, when producers choose to use it, narrows the address further. Cantina Flori's Strada Rizzi address puts the estate at the centre of the zone.
Soil And Site
The Barbaresco appellation sits on Tortonian and Helvetian marine sediments: compacted calcareous marl with clay content that retains water into dry summers and gives Nebbiolo the slow, cool root environment it needs to build acidity alongside tannin. Treiso's soils share this calcareous clay character. The 20 hectares Cantina Flori farms represent a meaningful slice of a commune-level DOCG that covers roughly 160 hectares in total. Specific parcel names and vine ages are not confirmed in the available record.
Story
Four generations of grape-growing is a long relationship with a place without a bottle to show for it. The Flori family supplied Treiso fruit to other producers across most of the twentieth century, which was not unusual. Many of Langhe's most respected estates started the same way: the land and the knowledge came first, the label came later.
Michele Flori broke that sequence in 2020. The timing was not comfortable. A global pandemic had just arrived, and the wine trade had frozen. Beginning independent vinification in that year was either poorly timed or indifferent to timing, and the estate has moved quickly either way. Within three vintages the Barbaresco was on a blind tasting panel in Alba. Within five years the range had reached the American market through a respected importer.
The SQNPI certification, Italy's national integrated-production standard, formalises what the family had already been doing across four generations of farming: recorded practice, reduced synthetic inputs, accountable viticulture. It is not organic and the estate does not claim it.
Vineyards And Cellar
The Langhe Nebbiolo is hand-harvested. Fermentation takes place in steel tanks, which preserves the grape's primary fruit character without adding texture or weight from wood contact during the conversion. Six months in Slavonian oak barrels follow. Slavonian oak is large-format, porous, and older in tradition than French barriques; it rounds the wine's tannins without depositing vanilla or toast character. The Langhe Nebbiolo carries roses, raspberries, herbs, and earthy undertones, with fine tannins and lively acidity. It opens early, carries its rose-petal and raspberry fruit close to the surface, and asks for food rather than a cellar.
The Barbaresco follows the DOCG protocol: 100% Nebbiolo, minimum 26 months from harvest with at least nine months in wood. Specific cellar details for Flori's Barbaresco are not confirmed beyond those appellation requirements.
Wines
Two bottlings define the current range.
The Langhe Nebbiolo DOC is the lighter and earlier-drinking of the two. Steel fermentation and six months of Slavonian oak keep the wine accessible from release. Fresh roses and ripe raspberries lead the nose; herbs and earth move underneath. The tannins are fine rather than grippy. Acidity is lively, cutting cleanly through the fruit. Nebbiolo at this level is built to sit beside food on a Tuesday, not to wait for a decade.
The Barbaresco DOCG is 100% Nebbiolo aged to appellation standard. The colour is garnet with orange reflections at the rim, a visual signature of Nebbiolo at bottle age or in an oxidative-leaning style. Acidity is balanced. A 2021 vintage, assessed blind at Nebbiolo Prima in Alba in January 2024, was described as gregarious and nearly ready to drink, which places this Barbaresco in an approachable rather than cellar-demanding register.
In The Glass
Nebbiolo from Treiso rises from the glass with dried roses and red cherry before herbs and a faint iron-tinged earth note settle in. In the mouth the acidity arrives early and stays through the finish, which is characteristic of the grape regardless of how it is handled in the cellar. The Langhe Nebbiolo carries this profile in a lighter frame: the tannins grip but do not dominate, the fruit stays bright, and the wine is finished before the food is gone. The Barbaresco adds weight and length. The orange-edged colour flags some development in bottle; the palate carries that through with tannins that have rounded at the edges and an acidity that balances rather than cuts. The finish is longer and more savoury, with the herb and earth notes that appear delicate in the Langhe here gaining more authority.
A Bottle To Understand It
Start with the Langhe Nebbiolo. It is hand-harvested, steel-fermented, and aged six months in Slavonian oak: a short, clean production path that delivers Nebbiolo without the formality or the price of Barbaresco. The nose is generous, roses and ripe raspberries with herbs behind. The palate is firm-boned but not austere, with lively acidity and tannins that are fine enough to work with a wide range of food. Drink it over the first three to five years. It is the clearest evidence that the Flori family knows what their Treiso Nebbiolo tastes like, and it costs a fraction of what the DOCG requires.
Anecdote
At Nebbiolo Prima in Alba in January 2024, a panel of tasters worked blind through a flight that included wines from some of the Langhe's most established names. Flori's 2021 Barbaresco was in the lineup. The estate had been making its own wine for three vintages. Michele Flori had broken from four generations of grape-selling in 2020, during a pandemic, with no track record in bottle and no external score to lean on. The note that came back from the panel read: gregarious, nearly ready for prime time. For a family whose name had spent a century attached to someone else's label, that blind result in Alba was the first time the wine spoke for itself.
Final Word
Cantina Flori is five vintages old. The family behind it has been farming Treiso for four generations. Those are two different facts pointing in the same direction: the vines are established, the people know the land, and the winemaking is still finding its level. The Langhe Nebbiolo is where to start. The Barbaresco is where to watch.
Sources
- https://cantinaflori.it/
- https://mt.wine/wines/flori-langhe-nebbiolo/
- https://www.winesurf.it/en/wineguide/producers/5261/flori-treiso/
- https://www.b2match.com/e/vinitaly-2025-company-mission/participants/2852827