The Taverna winery of Barbaresco is one of those Lilliputian wine estates that often make wines from rare native grapes and that I have discovered over the years bringing them to everybody’s attention. Most wine lovers, sommeliers, importers and collectors are very aware I was the first to write internationally about the wines of, for example, Trediberri in Barolo, Feudo Montoni in Sicily, Tiberio in Abruzzo, and of Damiano Ciolli in Lazio, thereby allowing these estates to gain new markets internationally and become very well-known, or even better-known, everywhere. It is a huge source of pride and happiness for me to do something not just for these hard-working families but also for the many rare native grapes those families work with, grapes that had been forgotten by most everybody else and that certainly nobody was writing about at the time I began doing so. Everybody knows about Italy’s many native grapes and wines today, many of which are in fact written about copiously nowadays, and nothing could make me happier. Hopefully, Taverna will be another of these many wineries to meet with success.
I hear you asking: so why should Taverna be on anybody’s radar, given its small production and hard to find wines? Well, because if you like Nebbiolo, and are always on the lookout for good Barolos and Barbarescos, Taverna has something for you. Two, in fact.
