The Vairas are not your average wine-growing family. You can take as a given the things many producers are striving to catch up on these days. Organic viticulture? The estate’s been at it since the beginning. Light-touch, hands-off winemaking to show off the fruit and terroir? Ditto. Innovation in the vineyard and cellar to keep raising the bar in the minutiae of purity and precision. Again, tick.
It’s maybe doing all the right things initially, instinctively, incessantly, that has freed up bandwidth for other artistic and cultural pursuits that are then threaded back through the rich tapestry woven by these Piemontese farmers. Splashes of colour on the labels and the winery’s Father Costantino Ruggeri-designed stained-glass windows hint at the link between hard work and a resplendent pay-off. When you’re surrounded by all the ingredients of complex beauty, why draw a line?
The family’s fondness for native grapes such as Nascetta, Albarossa, Slarina, Freisa, and Chatus is linked to this instinct. So is their wish to raise Dogliani Dolcetto to its former glory through the Monterustico label. Another key example of this wish to perpetuate wonder is Luigi Baudana.
The Serravallian soils of Serralunga d’Alba are a perfect complement to the Vaira vineyards in Barolo. The crus of Baudana and Cerretta match the majesty of Ravera and Bricco delle Viole. And the humble respect and understated excellence writ large in Luigi and Fiorina Baudana’s legacy fit the Vaira family like a glove.
It was a match made in Nebbiolo heaven when Luigi and Fiorina entrusted the estate to the Vajra family in 2009. Year after year, Baudana’s Barolo wines effortlessly pull off the tantalising contradictions of great Nebbiolo with its gleaming purity and shadowy enigma.
Those who managed to snap up the sold-out G.D. Vajra Barolo wines from 2021 know how this family made hay while the sun was shining during the stellar 2021 harvest. The Serralunga commune wine is always an immaculate and great-value ambassador for this area, and this edition is a cracker. The Baudana and Cerretta Barolos, meanwhile, demonstrate precisely what happens when a family of artistry and ambition with restraint is unleashed on great terroirs in a spectacular vintage.
The Wines
