From the atlas
Marchesi di Barolo
At A Glance
- Estate: Cantine dei Marchesi di Barolo S.p.a
- Village: Barolo, Langhe, Piemonte, Italy
- Anchor grape: Nebbiolo
- Key appellations: Barolo, Barbaresco, Roero, Monferrato Nicese
- Listed wine: Barolo Cannubi
- Current direction: Ernesto and Anna Abbona (fifth generation), Valentina and Davide Abbona (sixth generation), since 2006
- Certification: SQNPI integrated production (2022)
The Producer
The cellars of Marchesi di Barolo stand in the village of Barolo itself, below the Renaissance castle of the Marchesi Falletti. This is the building where the modern style of Barolo wine was first produced, in the early nineteenth century, when the grape was transformed from a sweet, sparkling drink into the full-bodied, dry wine the appellation is now built around. That origin is not a marketing note. It is a physical address: the same underground chambers, the same village, the same Nebbiolo from the Langhe hills.
Pietro Abbona bought the historic cellars from the Falletti family in 1929, after the aristocratic line ended without an heir. His great-grandson Ernesto and Ernesto's wife Anna took over direction in 2006. Their children Valentina and Davide now work alongside them, making the Abbona family the fifth and sixth generations to keep the estate in continuous production.
Place
Barolo is a village and an appellation. The village sits in the Langhe, the chain of hills south of Alba in southern Piemonte, where the Nebbiolo grape reaches its most complex form. The appellation of Barolo covers eleven communes, and within that geography the Cannubi cru is one of the most historically regarded single vineyards: a central, gently sloping hill in the heart of the zone, prized for producing wines of aromatic depth, firm acidity, and tannins that soften with age.
The estate's vineyards spread beyond Barolo into Barbaresco, the Nebbiolo appellation to the northeast of Alba; Roero, across the Tanaro river on sandier soils; and Monferrato Nicese to the east, where other varieties fill the range. Each zone changes the label, the permitted grape, and the wine's character. Barolo and Barbaresco are both Nebbiolo, but the soils and elevations differ, and the ageing requirements under Italian law are distinct.
Soil And Site
The Cannubi vineyard sits on mixed calcareous clay and sandy soils in the central Barolo zone. This combination produces wines with aromatic lift and relatively approachable tannins for Barolo, alongside enough grip to age. The Langhe hills in general are formed of Helvetian and Tortonian marine sediment, giving different communes different proportions of clay, limestone, and sand. No specific soil analysis for the estate's other parcels is available in the verified sources.
Story
Before the nineteenth century, the Nebbiolo grape was vinified as a lightly sweet, sparkling wine across much of Piemonte. Fermentation would stop before all the sugar converted, leaving residual sweetness and trapped carbon dioxide. The Marchesa Giulia Falletti Colbert changed the formula: she commissioned underground cellars designed to maintain cool temperatures through the autumn cold, which allowed fermentation to complete fully. Wooden barrel maturation followed. The result was a dry, full-bodied, stable wine. She named it after the village. That wine is what the label Barolo now describes.
When the Falletti dynasty ended without an heir in the late nineteenth century, the estate passed through several hands before Pietro Abbona acquired the cellars and vineyard holdings in 1929. Pietro was a local winemaker, not an aristocrat, and his family has kept the estate in production through five subsequent generations. Ernesto Abbona, taking direction in 2006, has pursued SQNPI integrated production certification alongside the inherited traditions, including the five centuries-old oak casks that continue to mature wine every vintage.
Vineyards And Cellar
Across the estate, herbicides are not used. The choice is both agronomic and a condition of the SQNPI certification, which requires integrated production practices across the whole holding. Working without herbicides keeps the vine root systems competing with grass cover, which limits vigour, concentrates the fruit, and reduces the risk of chemical residues in the wine.
In the cellar, five centuries-old large oak casks remain in continuous active use. These are not decorative. The casks are maintained constantly and filled each vintage. Large old oak contributes very little direct oak flavour to the wine; its function is slow, controlled oxidation over an extended ageing period. The tannins integrate gradually, and the aromatic range deepens from primary fruit toward the rose, spice, tar, and herbal notes that mark aged Nebbiolo.
Wines
The range moves from early-drinking blends to a single-vineyard Barolo, with the appellation level rising at each step.
Alba Pì Cità is a co-fermented blend of Nebbiolo and Barbera from the Alba appellation. Co-fermentation means the two grapes go into the vat together, and the Barbera contributes soft tannin and direct red fruit that counterbalances the Nebbiolo's natural austerity. The wine is designed for early drinking: open, fresh, light on its feet.
Bric Amel is a Nebbiolo-driven red produced in a crunchy, fresh style, built for approachability rather than ageing. It carries the characteristic Nebbiolo aroma of dried roses and red cherry without the extended maceration or oak ageing that produces the firm tannin of a Barolo. Light enough to serve slightly chilled.
Barolo Cannubi is the estate's benchmark wine. Nebbiolo from the Cannubi cru, aged in centuries-old oak casks. Aromatically layered, with rose, cherry, vanilla, spice, roasted nuts, eucalyptus, licorice, and tar. The acidity is bright and persistent. Tannins shift by vintage from soft and enveloping to close-grained with a drying finish. Built for long ageing.
The estate also produces Barbaresco and wines from Barbera and Dolcetto, though detailed tasting profiles for those bottles are not covered here.
In The Glass
Barolo Cannubi opens with an intense aromatic layer: dried roses and cherry rise first, followed by vanilla, roasted nuts, spice, and a faint herbal note that reads somewhere between eucalyptus and absinthe. In the mouth, the acidity is vivid and fresh, lifting the mid-palate and giving the wine its characteristic forward energy. The tannins are substantial but not hard; in ripe vintages they are soft and enveloping, in cooler years close-grained with a firm, drying finish that demands time. Licorice and tar emerge with air and age, pulling the wine toward the deeper, savory register that mature Nebbiolo reaches. The oak casks leave no timber or vanilla imprint; the wood's role is structural, not flavour-forward.
The estate's lighter wines, Bric Amel and Alba Pì Cità, occupy a different register entirely: fresh red fruit, low tannin, direct. They are built on the same grape but vinified without extended ageing, and the difference in the glass is immediately apparent.
A Bottle To Understand It
Barolo Cannubi is the right first bottle. It is Nebbiolo from the Cannubi cru, aged in centuries-old large oak casks in the village cellars where the Barolo style was first developed. The wine carries the full aromatic register of the appellation: rose, cherry, spice, tar, licorice, eucalyptus. The acidity is vivid and clean, not aggressive. The tannins are firm but not punishing, and the wine opens further over an hour in the glass. Buy a bottle young and open it with food, or keep it for a decade and open something different. Either way, the Cannubi cru and the old wood in these specific cellars are doing the work, and that combination is what the Marchesi di Barolo label was built around.
Anecdote
Sometime in the early 1800s, Marchesa Giulia Falletti Colbert looked at the Nebbiolo coming out of her Langhe vineyards and decided the wine it produced was not the wine it should be. What the region was bottling at the time was sweet and slightly sparkling: fermentation stopped before the sugar ran out, leaving a pleasant but unstable drink that did not travel well and did not improve with age. The Marchesa had the cellars beneath the castle redesigned to stay cool through the autumn, long enough for fermentation to finish completely. She moved the wine into large wooden barrels. What came out was dry, full-bodied, and stable. She gave it the name of the village. The cellars she built are the cellars the Abbona family still uses today, and the five centuries-old oak casks the Marchesa's successors maintained are still filled each vintage.
Final Word
Marchesi di Barolo occupies a specific position in the Langhe: an estate that did not simply settle near the origin of Barolo wine but operates from the exact site where the style was created. The Abbona family has kept that continuity intact across five generations, from Pietro's 1929 acquisition through Ernesto and Anna's current direction and into Valentina and Davide's emerging role. The Cannubi cru gives Barolo Cannubi its depth, and the old oak casks in the cellar give it its method. For anyone coming to Barolo for the first time, this address makes the history of the appellation concrete.
Sources
- https://frederickwildman.com/producers/marchesi-di-barolo/
- https://www.decanter.com/sponsored/marchesi-di-barolo-six-generations-of-the-abbona-family-in-piemonte-549804/