Fontanabianca 2018 | Barbaresco

The name comes from a fountain. In the valley below the winery there is a natural spring from which the people of Neive historically drew water for their homes and their animals, and that is where Fontanabianca comes from.

Before it was a winery it was a farm: Secondo Pola worked the property as an agricultural holding. The change came in 1969, when his son Franco made the first bottle of Barbaresco Bordini. Today the third generation is in charge —Matteo Pola, the estate's winemaker since 2013— alongside his father Aldo, Franco's son, and Aldo's wife Luisella.

The house sits in the hamlet of Bordini, within the commune of Neive, on the cru of the same name: a full-sun hill with southern exposure, close to the Tanaro. Three parcels with vines around thirty years old on clay-limestone marl, where two strata meet —the blue-grey Tortonian and the white calcareous Helvetian— which is why the same Nebbiolo gives both perfume and structure here.

The house motto sums it up in one line: preserve the taste of the grape in the wine. In practice that means fermentation in temperature-controlled steel and ageing that combines large oak botti with barriques. Beyond Barbaresco they make Dolcetto, Barbera d'Alba Superiore, Langhe Arneis and an Alta Langa sparkling wine.