Giulia Negri

Barologirl. A nickname that could hardly be more fitting. She got it from the Baroloboys, some of the most famous winegrowers of the area, like Elio Altare or Angelo Gaja, who turned the Barolo world upside down with modern technologies.

Giulia Negri turns this world upside down again. Because it doesn't fit in a drawer. She is not a modernist, because she macerates for a long time, around one and a half months, in 60 hectolitres of wooden fermenting stands, and she ages her wines for a long time. Three different Barolo crusts mature up to 30 months in 2,500 litre barrels of Slavonian oak. But she is not a traditionalist either, because for her Chardonnay and Pinot Noir specialities she uses small French barrels. However, also no typical barriques, but 350 l barrels and tonneaux, and the even small percentage new. Their wines are simply extraordinary. Individual, mineral and elegant.

Impressive is this young woman. At less than 20 years of age, she tried her first own wine selections in her parents' business, which she took over completely at the age of 23 after studying bio-technology and doing internships in Burgundy. Her first own Barolo was the 2007 vintage and immediately made it into the Top 100 of wine enthusiasts. At that time she was still called a "garage winemaker".

In the interview she tells with a smile: "Some impress with millions of investments and buildings by star architects. For me, only three points count in the basement: Cleanliness, simplicity to work well and passion. Because the wines should show where they come from." When you sit across from her in autumn, you believe every word she says, because her hands clearly show that she is doing something herself. Scratched by the work in the vineyard and violet-red, not about the fingernails, no, the complete hands are colored by the work with the Nebbiolo in the cellar. She laughs again: "Well, that's part of a barologue girl's job...". She wears the nickname like an award.

The origin is not, as with many others, marketing blah-blah, but impressive as they themselves. If you take the winding road (SP58) from Barolo to La Morra, you come to the panoramic viewpoint, where everyone stops for a moment to take pictures of the unique landscape. This is exactly where you have to turn around and look up the mountain behind, because there, more than one hundred metres higher, the vineyards La Tartufaia are situated at an altitude of more than 460 metres above sea level, surrounded by the last woods in which the famous white Alba truffle still thrives - this is where the name comes from. And at the very top, up to 540 m, lies the heart, the single vineyard Serradenari. This vineyard, the highest in the entire Barolo area, is often sunny, while the rest of the Barolo vine sea is covered by fog. Like I said, impressive. Not just as a photo.

The floors change every few meters. From limestone rocks to loam and clay to high sandy deposits with fossil content. Extremely much manual work is necessary and a matter of course for Giulia Negri, because the vineyards, which were renewed about twenty years ago, are all organically cultivated, from the vintage 2019 onwards all will also be certified organic.

"We are only four people who do everything, work in the vineyards, in the cellar, in the office and travel halfway around the world to sell our wines and our philosophy. This time she smiles only rudimentarily and shows that it is quite exhausting. "Unfortunately, there is sometimes very little wine, because our exposed sites are in response to climate change, but thunderstorms and hail have been increasingly affecting us in recent years. SUPERIORE.DE