Luciano Sandrone is new to the world of Piedmonte, scratching together his savings to buy a small plot of land in Barolo in 1977. He started off making wine in his parent’s garage and he slowly learnt his trade and developed his vineyard. In 1989 and 1990 he leapt onto the world stage with the help of some great ranking and reviews from Robert Parker and he has never looked back. For the past 20 years he has been considered one of the elite producers of Piedmonte. Luciano now has holdings in some of the most legendary plots in Barolo, including Cannubi Boschis. It is with the wines from Barolo that he has made his fame, selling out on release each year, but it is from his Dolcetto d’Alba that he gains most enjoyment.
Sandrone’s Dolcetto has earned its place as the varietal’s top ranking in Piedmonte. The beauty of this wine lies in its superb structure, texture and balance that can only come with perfectly ripe fruit. The opulence of the fruit is perfectly balanced by superb freshness, a product of the high altitude vineyards from which this wine is sourced, all between 350-450 metres above sea level. Only Natural yeasts are used during the fermentation stage and a very gentle and hands off approach is carried out. The idea of this wine is to be fresh and approachable when young and as such it is made without any wood or oak contact. The result is a fleshy, pulpy wine with mouth filling flavours of dark cherry, blue plum and anise. It is inky dark, a characteristic of the 2015 vintage, but the wine is full of energy and freshness. There’s also subtle and complex hints of earth and minerals.