Why it matters
The producer
David Fletcher is Australian. He lives in Barbaresco, and he makes wine in the village's old railway station. Both facts matter more than they sound: the station is not a renovation project but a functioning family home and cantina, the address on every label, and the physical centre of a winery whose wines reach 21 countries in runs of no more than 30,000 bottles a year.
Fletcher trained in enology at Adelaide University and arrived in Burgundy first. Nebbiolo found him in 2006, and by 2009 he was at Ceretto in Barolo and Barbaresco as an intern, eventually leading their red-wine production. When he left to make his own wines, he took the knowledge of those appellations and applied it from twelve vineyard sites across Barbaresco, Alba and the Roero, farming organically and staying close to the grape. The range now runs to ten wines, and the logic holding it together is consistent: Nebbiolo, old barrels, as little interference as the vintage allows.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Barbaresco is a DOCG appellation in the southern part of Piemonte's Langhe hills, built entirely around Nebbiolo. The village sits on the right bank of the Tanaro river, and its vineyards face south and southeast across calcareous clay soils that push Nebbiolo toward fragrance and firm, drying tannin rather than weight. The appellation produces wines that tend to open earlier than Barolo, though single-vineyard examples from named sites can age for two decades.
The Piemontese classification identifies individual vineyard parcels within Barbaresco as MGAs, Menzione Geografica Aggiuntiva. These are named single vineyards that may appear on the label when fruit comes exclusively from that parcel and the wine meets the additional ageing requirements. Fletcher produces single-vineyard Barbaresco from two MGAs: Faset and Ronchi. Below the Barbaresco and Barolo designations sits the Langhe DOC, a broader regional appellation that covers wines from Nebbiolo grown outside the classified village zones, including fruit from Alba and the Roero.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
Fermentation for the Nebbiolo wines is spontaneous: no added yeasts, no temperature manipulation beyond what the cellar provides naturally. Extraction is deliberate and light. Fletcher uses pigeage by hand every other day rather than pumping over, which limits the extraction of harsh tannin while still pulling colour and aromatic compounds from the skins. The wines are pressed only after primary fermentation has finished and the sugars have fermented dry, not partway through, which means the grape's fruit character has time to settle before the press fraction joins the free-run.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range begins with the Langhe Nebbiolo, a broader DOC wine drawing on fruit from younger vines and lighter-structured parcels across Barbaresco, Alba and the Roero. It is vinified with the same spontaneous fermentation and old-barrel ageing as the village wines, but the fruit sources give it a more open, earlier-drinking character with lighter tannin and a fresher red-fruit profile. It is the range's introduction to Fletcher's cellar approach without the weight of a full village designation behind it.
The Langhe Nebbiolo opens with red cherry and a faint dried herb note, the acidity forward on the palate, the tannin present but light enough that it does not grip. It is the range's clearest argument that Fletcher's cellar method works at every level: no new oak, nothing sweetening or smoothing, just the grape in a lighter key.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with the blended Barbaresco. It brings together multiple village parcels across a single appellation, fermented spontaneously and aged in old barrels, and it shows what Fletcher does with Nebbiolo at full village concentration without requiring the patience of a single-vineyard bottle. On the nose: dried rose, dark cherry, a faint iron note. On the palate: firm Nebbiolo tannin, mouth-watering acidity, a mid-palate that opens with two or three years of age. No new oak. No sweetness. Open it at four years from harvest and it will be starting to say what it is.