From the atlas
Azienda Agricola Lalù
At A Glance
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| Country | Italy |
| Region | Piemonte |
| Communes | Monforte d'Alba, La Morra |
| Grapes | Nebbiolo, Barbera |
| Range | Barbera d'Alba, Langhe Nebbiolo, Barolo Le Coste di Monforte |
| Founded | 2019 (first vintage) |
| Vineyard | ~3.5 hectares |
| Production | ~8,000 bottles per year |
The Producer
Lara Rocchetti and Luisa Sala founded Lalù in 2019, releasing their first three wines from a rented cellar in Serralunga d'Alba. Both are from Turin. Both studied at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, where they met on the first day of classes. The name folds their first names together: La(ra) and Lu(isa).
Lalù is a new-generation Barolo producer with a deliberately small footprint: 3.5 hectares across two communes, roughly 8,000 bottles a year, and a debut range of three wines. Their flagship is a Barolo from Le Coste di Monforte. The approach in vineyard and cellar is low-intervention throughout, built around preserving the character of each parcel rather than correcting or amplifying it.
Place
Barolo DOCG covers a cluster of communes in the Langhe hills south of Alba, in the southern part of Piemonte. The wine must be made entirely from Nebbiolo and aged for a minimum period before release. Within the DOCG, commune character varies considerably. La Morra, in the northwestern part of the zone, sits on calcareous Tortonian soils and produces Barolos that tend toward earlier-drinking elegance, with softer tannin profiles and more floral aromatic lift than wines from the harder, more austere sandstone and clay formations further southeast.
Monforte d'Alba, by contrast, sits on Helvetian soils with more compact clay and limestone, and its Barolos are typically firmer in tannin and longer in development. Le Coste is a recognised zone within Monforte d'Alba, at altitude, where Nebbiolo ripens slowly through the long Langhe autumn.
Lalù draws from both communes: the Roncaglie parcel in La Morra at 400 metres supplies the Nebbiolo program, while Monforte d'Alba parcels provide the fruit for the Barolo. The range covers the different characters both addresses produce.
Soil And Site
The Roncaglie parcel in La Morra sits at 400 metres elevation, 0.5 hectares acquired in 2015. Elevation at this height in the Langhe extends the growing season and preserves acidity in Nebbiolo, moderating the grape's tendency toward high alcohol when picked at full phenolic ripeness on lower slopes.
The Barolo fruit comes from Monforte d'Alba parcels in the Le Coste zone. Detailed soil composition data for the individual plots is not confirmed in verified sources beyond the commune-level geology described above.
Story
Lara and Luisa bought their first parcel in 2015, four years before they bottled anything. The Roncaglie plot in La Morra came through a connection they had developed while working in the Langhe. They were not ready to make wine yet. What they had was land, and they spent the following years learning it.
In 2019 they rented a cellar in Serralunga d'Alba and made their first vintage: 5,000 bottles covering Barbera d'Alba, Langhe Nebbiolo, and a Barolo from Le Coste di Monforte. The decision to start small was not a constraint. It was the shape they had designed. Both had trained in gastronomy rather than enology, which gave them an understanding of wine from the table end before the cellar end, and their winemaking choices reflect that orientation: they wanted to know what the wine would be before they decided how to make it.
The range has grown incrementally since, adding parcels within the same two communes and keeping total production close to 8,000 bottles.
Vineyards And Cellar
For the Nebbiolo and Barbera, Lara and Luisa use whole-cluster and whole-berry inclusions. Rather than feeding clusters through a mechanical destemmer, they remove only the peduncle from each bunch by hand, leaving the rachis and pedicel intact. In the fermentation vessel, the grape skins and seeds are accompanied by the rachis and pedicel of the bunch, which contributes tannin and phenolic complexity from a different part of the plant. The additional tannin from the rachis is softer than seed tannin.
No crushing takes place. Transfers through the cellar use gravity where possible rather than pumps, and pumpovers during fermentation are performed by hand. Each of these choices reduces mechanical stress on the fruit and the developing wine.
The Barolo ferments and ages in Austrian oak. Austrian oak imparts less flavour than French or American oak and allows slower, more gradual oxidation. The effect is to let the Nebbiolo's own aromatic character develop without the vanilla or toast signatures that more reactive wood would introduce.
Wines
The Lalù range runs across three appellations and two communes.
The Barbera d'Alba is a red wine from Barbera, Piemonte's most widely planted red grape. Barbera carries natural high acidity and low tannin, which in the glass translates to a wine with vivid red fruit, a firm acid line, and a light to medium body. The whole-cluster and whole-berry approach adds phenolic complexity and moderate phenolic depth without heavy extraction.
The Langhe Nebbiolo is a Langhe DOC red from Nebbiolo at sub-regional level, a step below Barolo or Barbaresco in the legal hierarchy. From the Roncaglie parcel in La Morra, it carries the commune character of that address: aromatic, relatively approachable Nebbiolo with tannin that is firm but not austere. The same cellar approach applies: whole-berry inclusions, no crushing, gravity transfers.
The Barolo Le Coste di Monforte is the flagship. A single-zone Barolo from the Monforte d'Alba commune, made from Nebbiolo and aged in Austrian oak. The 2019 debut shows spice and underbrush on the nose, with a mouthfeel described as enveloping and a finish that is persistent. The Monforte address and the whole-berry fermentation give it weight and aromatic depth, while the Austrian oak keeps the wood influence quiet.
In The Glass
The Barolo Le Coste di Monforte is the clearest expression of what Lalù is doing in the cellar. The 2019 opens with spice and underbrush, the aromatic signature of Nebbiolo from a cooler, higher-altitude site with extended hang time. In the mouth it is enveloping rather than angular: the whole-berry fermentation and the absence of crushing have softened the tannin profile relative to what full destemming and pump-driven extraction would produce. The finish is persistent, carrying the dried herb and earth character through rather than cutting off at the mid-palate.
The Langhe Nebbiolo from La Morra shows the softer side of the same grape in a more accessible register: floral, with the firm acidity that Roncaglie's elevation preserves, and tannin that is present but not demanding. The Barbera d'Alba delivers the grape's characteristic acid-driven freshness, with red fruit and a lighter body.
A Bottle To Understand It
Start with the Barolo Le Coste di Monforte. It is the wine that Lara and Luisa built the project around, and it carries the most detail about what they are trying to do: whole-berry fermentation on Nebbiolo from an altitude site in Monforte d'Alba, aged in Austrian oak that stays quiet in the background. In the glass it gives spice, underbrush, and a long finish. The tannins are present and genuine but not forbidding. This is a Barolo with the patience to develop in bottle and enough character to make sense of now.
Anecdote
Lara Rocchetti and Luisa Sala met on the first day of classes at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, in 2015 or thereabouts, a friendship that took years to become a winery. In 2015, working in the Langhe, they were given the opportunity to purchase a half-hectare parcel in Roncaglie, a hillside in La Morra at 400 metres. They bought it. Then they waited. No cellar, no label, no first vintage: just the land, and the decision that they were not ready yet. Four years passed before they rented a cellar in Serralunga d'Alba and made their first wine, 5,000 bottles covering three appellations. The name they put on the label was Lalù, La(ra) and Lu(isa) pressed together. The parcel that had been sitting on the hillside since 2015 finally had a bottle to belong to.
Final Word
Lalù is five years old at most. The range is three wines and 8,000 bottles a year. What makes it worth attention is not scale but deliberateness: land acquired before there was a winery, methods chosen because of what they do to the wine rather than what they save in time, and a Barolo that already carries the aromatic depth of its commune. Lara and Luisa built this project slowly and from the ground up. The wines match that pace.
Sources
- https://www.polanerselections.com/producers/lalu/
- https://souverainewine.com/azienda-lalu
- https://www.kelloggwineselections.com/lalu
- https://dbgitalia.com/producer/az-agr-lalu/
- https://galiena.sg/pages/lalu
- https://laviteturchese.it/en/product/lalu-barolo-le-coste-di-monforte-2019/
- https://wordonthegrapevine.co.uk/azienda-agricola-lalu-barolo-piedmont/