Fortemasso is a small Barolo producer that is currently just a blip on the radar of many Langhe-lovers but my hunch is that it’s a name you’ll hear a lot more from in the future. With thirty years experience visiting the Barolo area as often as fifteen times a year, I’ve been down this road many times before, so I recognize the makings of a good thing in Barolo-land when I see it. Frankly, if I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t bother writing up an unsponsored feature like this one on the people, the place and the outfit: I have extremely limited free time as it is. And so, if and when I do so, there’s a reason. When I discern potential for development into something special (usually after a few visits and a few different vintages tasted), then I am all in. The last time this happened was with Trediberri, an essentially unknown entity outside of Italy before I started writing about it and scoring its wines (owner Nicola Oberto remembers this well, and so do I). Today Trediberri is, for many reasons, a star winery, and deservedly so. Therefore, it is not without interest to me that I find Fortemasso sharing some traits (but not all) with what trediberri was like in its beginnings; to be clear, I’m not predicting here and now that the paths of these two wineries will mirror each other (that will depend on a slew of factors, including time, lady luck, and hard work), but for now I see multiple very good things with Fortemasso.
