Why it matters
The producer
In 1971, the Gagliasso family bottled their first Barolo. The company had existed for a decade already, founded by Michele Gagliasso in the 1960s as a collective agricultural firm under the name Azienda Agricola Gagliasso Michele e Figli, growing grapes and selling them on. The decision to bottle under the family name was the first step toward a different kind of estate.
Mario Gagliasso took ownership and direction in the 1980s, making Barolo the clear centre of the operation. Today his son Luca works as oenologist and manages exports; his daughter Nicoletta is the winemaker. The estate sits in La Morra, the westernmost of Barolo's major communes, with vineyards spread across four municipalities that give the range its breadth.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
La Morra is Barolo's most aromatic commune. Its Nebbiolo tends toward lifted red fruit, violet, and tar, with tannins that are firm but rounder at youth than those from the sandstone and clay of Serralunga d'Alba to the east. The Barolo DOCG covers eleven communes; La Morra accounts for a large share of total hectares and is the heart of what growers call the western, or Tortonian, soils: compacted Helvetian marine sediment laid down over millions of years, giving wines more immediate perfume and softer grip.
Gagliasso's vineyards extend to Monforte d'Alba, Novello, and Cherasco as well. Monforte brings a harder, more austere character to Nebbiolo; Novello sits at higher elevation with cooler nights. The spread across four communes is less common for a 15-hectare estate and gives the producer access to distinct ripeness and tannin profiles within a single range.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The 15 hectares divide across La Morra, Monforte d'Alba, Novello, and Cherasco, with the La Morra crus at the top of the hierarchy. Farming follows the Green Experience certified integrated and sustainable agriculture protocol: minimal chemical inputs, hand harvest, and hand pumping and punchdown during fermentation. No mechanical harvest.
Fermentation takes place in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks with medium to long maceration. Maceration length in stainless steel extracts colour and tannin from Nebbiolo's thick skins; controlling temperature keeps fermentation clean and preserves aromatic lift. After fermentation, the wine moves to oak. The approximately 250 French oak barriques are a modern format by Barolo standards, where large Slavonian oak casks of 25 to 50 hectolitres were once universal. The six large barrels in the cellar run alongside the barriques, softening the oak imprint. The combination gives Gagliasso's Barolo more immediate fruit expression than purely large-format aging would allow, while maintaining the tannins Nebbiolo requires to age.
Wines to know
The range in view
Barolo makes up 40 percent of production and anchors everything else. The two named La Morra crus sit at the top of the range.
Barolo Rocche dell'Annunziata is drawn from parcels within the historic 30-hectare cru. Nebbiolo on this slope gives wines with lifted aromatics, dried rose, tar, and a mid-palate of dark cherry fruit, with firm tannin that fills out across the width of the mouth rather than gripping at the front. The acidity is high, as it always is in Nebbiolo, and it runs clean through the finish.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Barolo Rocche dell'Annunziata is the right starting point. It is the estate's most historically grounded wine, drawn from a named cru that predates most Barolo producers' founding documents. The wine is Nebbiolo fermented in stainless steel, aged in French oak barriques, and sourced from La Morra's softer-soiled western slopes. In the glass it offers dried rose, tar, sour cherry, and a firm acid line, with broad tannin that rewards two to three years of patience after release. The oak is present but not dominant. Start here to understand what La Morra Nebbiolo gives and what the Gagliasso cellar does with it.