Solea, Langhe Bianco, 2019

This is a special release indeed. Not only is 2019 clearly a great year across Piedmont, but it is a vintage release that coincides with an estate bang on form. Thanks to the never-ending improvements Luca has been introducing here, Roagna is an estate at the top of its game.

In Luca’s own words, “the 2019s are elegant but with structure – they have an intense mid-palate and are bigger than the 2018s but are not heavier. They are intense but silky wines. In my view you can age the 2019s for as long as you like. It is one of the great vintages.” Sometimes, Luca likes to include a very small percentage of stalks during vinification, but none were required in 2019 – the wines naturally offering good structure and a nice balance of alcohol and acidity.

It was the first year in which they employed their Pellenc de-stalker, which feels like it must have helped with the definition and clarity of expression in the wines – due to the machine keeping the whole berries perfectly intact during the process. Alcohols were very reasonable by Piedmont standards, ranging between 13.6 –14.3%, complemented by good balancing levels of acidity. The vintage’s only minor drawback is that it produced a little less wine than in 2018.

Across his 15-hectare estate, split equally between Barbaresco and Barolo, Luca continues his low-intervention, minimal impact approach in the vines and the cantina. Key features of how he works in the vineyard include eschewing green harvest to better attain perfect physiological (not sugar) ripeness; and grassing-over to protect the soils. This latter technique not only sequesters carbon in the process but crucially reduces the vigor and amount of less stable malic acid in the final wines; one of the reasons Luca’s wines are typically so bright and energetic.

In the cellar, Luca continues to fine-tune and enhance the freshness of the wines by reducing the amount of time in wood and extending the length of maturation, sur lie, in cement vats. Even to a bona fide fan of the estate such as me, the results are simply staggering – these are wines that offer incredible detail and vineyard expression.

The warmth of the year is subtly sign-posted by a gentle glow to the fruit, which is bolstered by a crisp, binding, but beautifully integrated structure. These are wines of pure pleasure, but also wines for the cellar.