The secret of Barolo Chinato rests in its recipe but even more so in the technique handed down to me by my father: the smart moves, the devices, the precise times dictated by the long training of the senses and which are not found in any book. Moments of great intimacy, and each time I feel again the sense of bewilderment and fascination of the first times when I, as a young kid, followed with my eyes the expertise and wisdom of my father while he performed what seemed to me as a kind of magic. The tools are still the same, and pride of place in the ritual is for the cast iron mortar and pestle, in which I grind the spices separately and with infinite patience.
Once the right grinding is obtained the spices are macerated in alcohol for about a month, respecting a precise order and the extraction times; at the end of the month the aromatic alcohol is mixed with sugar and with aged DOCG Barolo. Then a resting period begins during which all the elements blend together until they reach a harmonious whole. Time is a fundamental ally because the spices soften up and fuse together without cancelling each other out. At the end of this period, during which Barolo Chinato sediments the powder of the species still in suspension, we proceed to non-filtered bottling in order to preserve the wine’s complexity.
