The cellar

Bottles kept for the right glass.

A personal cellar of vintage Barolo, Barbaresco and Amarone — quietly aged for the table at Melle.

In the cellar

Decades of bottles, kept by hand. Two flagship tastings, opened only for those who reserve the seat.

A line of vintage Barolo and Barbaresco bottles on the cellar table

Tasting · I

Barolo & Barbaresco — 30 years and older

€30 6-sample flight

A flight through the great Nebbiolo houses, drawn from the back of the cellar.

Six glasses, all from vintages of thirty years and more — Marchesi di Barolo Riserva, La Spinona Barbaresco, the 1971 and 1974 bottles I have kept for the table that knows what they mean. Pours are small on purpose; the point is the arc, not the volume.

I tell each estate as it is poured — the soils, the family, the year. The room is the kitchen at Melle, the rhythm is unhurried, the wine does the rest.

What's poured

Six pours, vintages 1994 and earlier
Marchesi di Barolo, La Spinona, Vignaioli Pertinace and others
Sommelier-led commentary, English or Italian
Bread, hard cheese and water at the table

Reserve this tasting →

Amarone della Valpolicella 1994, Romano Dal Forno

Tasting · II

Amarone & Valpolicella Dal Forno — vintage tasting

€100 per person

Six glasses from Romano Dal Forno’s cellar in Illasi, paired with the long, slow plates of the Piedmontese hills.

A flight through the Dal Forno bottles I have aged myself — the 1994 Amarone, the 2001, the Valpolicella Superiore from 2013 and 2014. These are some of the most singular wines made in Italy in the last forty years; they ask for food that knows how to answer.

Served with venison or wild-boar stew and pappardelle in hare or roe-deer ragù — the table sits long, the bottles are opened in order, the conversation goes where it goes.

Read the il Golosario feature on Dal Forno ↗

What's poured