Best-kept secret: A conversation with Raffaele Seghesio of Renzo Seghesio (Monforte d’Alba)

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Best-kept secret: A conversation with Raffaele Seghesio of Renzo Seghesio (Monforte d’Alba)

raffaele seghesio

Winery website.

Producer page.

Even though the Renzo Seghesio winery and its wines have been considered a classic and iconic expression of Barolo since Renzo started bottling and labeling his own wines in 1968, sadly (or happily, depending on how you look at it) there’s not a lot of information about the estate readily available on the internets.

When you leaf through Sheldon Wasserman’s landmark tome, The Noble Red Wines of Italy, you can read the author’s tasting notes for the wines stretching back to some of his first tasting trips to the Langhe. It’s an indication of the esteem that these wines enjoy among Nebbiolo connoisseurs and Barolo insiders.

But despite its embrace by the Italian wine cognoscenti like Wasserman and countless other luminaries of the Italian wine world (Burton Anderson also included Renzo Seghesio in his Simon and Schuster Guide to the Wines of Italy, for example), the estate is one of those rare Langhe wineries that has managed to stay off the radar.

For those seeking out information on these old-school, traditional-style, large-cask-aged wines, the best resource for an in-depth look at the estate, its vineyards, and its labels is Manhattan restaurateur Joe Campanale’s recent podcast interview with Raffaele Seghesio on the Heritage Radio Network. In the highly informative chat (which lasts about 30 minutes), Raffaele gives an excellent description and overview of the estate and its winemaking philosophy.

Joe is a bona fide celebrity sommelier and restaurateur and he’s a passionate lover of Nebbiolo (it’s his favorite grape, he says in the podcast) and we couldn’t think of a better representative of the U.S. food and wine community to share his insights into these fabulous, under-the-radar wines.