Roagna Dolcetto d'Alba 2024

Roagna is among the last of Barbaresco's great traditionalist houses, and Luca Roagna, the fifth generation, extends the family's patient methods even to Dolcetto. The estate's entry red comes from vines forty-five years and older in the Pajé and Carso vineyards of Barbaresco, on soils rich in chalk, limestone, and clay. Fermentation runs on indigenous yeasts in large French casks, followed by the house signature: a submerged-cap maceration lasting up to one hundred days, an extraction measured in months where most Dolcetto gets days. About a year in neutral French oak finishes the job. For all that structure it stays true to the grape: vinous, floral, and crunchy, light-bodied and refreshing, with ripe fruit and soft, fully integrated tannins. Entry-level in name only.