2021 Pira, Luigi - Barolo Marenca (750ml)

The Pira family has been rooted in the hills of Serralunga d'Alba since the late nineteenth century, though it was Luigi Pira, working the land with his wife Rosa in the 1950s, who first built the estate into a proper wine business. His sons Gianpaolo, Romolo, and Claudio took over the cellar and vineyards in the early 1990s, shifting the family from selling grapes in bulk toward bottling their own wine, with the first Barolo released in 1993.

Marenca is one of three prized crus the family farms around Serralunga, alongside Margheria and Vigna Rionda, and Pira holds the largest share of the two-hectare site. The vines were planted in 1990 on limestone-clay soils at 350 meters, facing south-southwest on a steep, sheltered slope. Fermentation and maceration run eighteen to twenty days in temperature-controlled stainless steel, after which the wine ages twenty-four months, its first year in French oak tonneaux and its second in large Slavonian oak casks, with production limited to around nine thousand bottles.

The wine pours an intense garnet red, with a fresh, complex bouquet of wild berries, cherry, vanilla, chocolate, and aromatic herbs. The palate is vigorous and rich, with energetic tannins softened by the wood, finishing long and structured. Pair it with braised wild boar, aged pecorino, or roasted game birds.