Who makes it
Cascina Rabaglio sits just outside the historic centre of Barbaresco, the Piedmontese hilltop village whose Nebbiolo wines have been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage landscape. Filippo and Daniela Rigo and their friend Andrea Salatin founded the estate in 2005, taking on land their grandfather Giovanni Battista had farmed. For seven years they grew Tonda Gentile hazelnuts and sold grapes. In 2012, Filippo Rigo began making wine.
That seven-year gap separates Cascina Rabaglio from estates that began with winemaking ambitions and retrofitted an agricultural story. The farm came first. The wine followed when the land and the three partners were ready.
Where it grows
Barbaresco is one of the two great Nebbiolo appellations of the Langhe hills in Piedmont, the other being Barolo to the southwest. Both demand a minimum ageing period and both require 100 percent Nebbiolo, the grape that builds its character from tannin, acidity, and the slow transformation of those elements over years in bottle. Barbaresco produces wines that tend toward earlier accessibility than Barolo, though serious bottlings can age for decades.
The Barbaresco DOCG covers three communes: Barbaresco, Neive, and Treiso. Cascina Rabaglio draws from all three zones, with its cellar at Strada Rabajà 8 on the edge of the Barbaresco village itself. The Rabajà vineyard area, whose Piedmontese dialect name Rabaj gave the estate its name, sits on calcareous marl soils with clay, limestone, and sand. The Langhe climate runs temperate to cold, with a sub-continental character.
How it is made
The cellar
The parcels unsuitable for vines grow Tonda Gentile hazelnuts. Those suited to Nebbiolo become either Barbaresco or Nebbiolo d'Alba depending on commune and appellation qualification. Barbera, Dolcetto, Arneis, and Riesling fill out the range from the broader Langhe appellations.
Gaia Principe, the Barbaresco sourced from Neive, ages first in French barriques, then transfers to large Slavonian oak casks with no toast. Time in barrel is followed by several months in bottle before release. The barriques give initial frame; the large zero-toast Slavonian casks allow slow oxygen exposure without adding oak flavour. The result in the glass is a wine that carries fruit and grip rather than wood character.
What they make
The Barbaresco range divides into two named bottlings with different origins and different feels in the glass.
Gaia Principe comes from Neive, the easternmost of the three Barbaresco communes. The 2021 showed richly fruity aromatics with light quinine-like lift, a palate that ran severe and slender, and a persistent finish. The élevage in barriques then large Slavonian oak gives it frame without obvious oak flavour.
Wines to try
First bottle
Start with Barbaresco Meruzzano. The 2019 carried iris, violet, forest berry, and star anise on the nose, then moved to a linear, racy palate with taut fine-grained tannins, bright acidity, and raspberry, Marasca cherry, baking spice, and liquorice through to a long, dry finish. This is Nebbiolo grown in calcareous marl on the Barbaresco hill: aromatic, firm, and built to last past 2034. Meruzzano shows the grape and the place clearly, without the richer, more severe frame of Gaia Principe. It is a useful first bottle because the balance between fruit, tannin, and acidity is accessible while still being unambiguously Barbaresco.