Why it matters
The producer
Revello Fratelli farms Nebbiolo across five named MGA vineyard sites in the hamlet of Annunziata, within the La Morra commune of the Langhe hills. The estate's most argued bottles are four single-vineyard Barolos: Giachini, Conca, Vigna Gattera, and Cerretta. Three of those crus sit on the Tortonian soils of La Morra; the fourth, Cerretta, crosses the commune boundary into Serralunga d'Alba, where older, harder Helvetian soils push the wine into a different register entirely.
The cellar is modern in method: temperature-controlled rotary fermenters, indigenous yeasts, and French-oak barriques, with new and previously used barrels varying by cru and wine, and bottling without fining or filtration. The name on the label has changed as the generations have come in, but the address has not. The family has farmed Annunziata since 1945.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
La Morra is the westernmost of Barolo's five main communes, and its Tortonian soils, a mix of Helvetian blue-grey marls and more compact Tortonian limestone-clay, produce the appellation's most approachable tannins. Barolo from La Morra tends to open earlier than wines from Serralunga d'Alba or Castiglione Falletto, and its fruit profile runs toward ripe cherry and dried rose rather than the tar and graphite that characterise the sandstone east.
Annunziata sits at the southern end of La Morra, on gentle, south-facing slopes above the valley floor. The MGA sites here, including Giachini and Rocche dell'Annunziata, are among the most established in the commune. Their labels carry the village name and the vineyard designation.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
Vineyard work limits chemical intervention to targeted sulfur and copper treatments. No herbicides or insecticides are used. Summer thinning reduces the crop twice per season, concentrating what remains on the vine.
Fermentation runs through temperature-controlled roto-maceration: rotating stainless-steel vessels that extract colour, tannin, and fruit over short, controlled cycles. Indigenous yeasts carry the fermentation. The combination of short maceration and native yeast produces Barolo with primary fruit character and moderate tannin extraction, rather than the deep pigment and extracted grip associated with extended traditional maceration.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range opens with a Langhe Nebbiolo, the estate's most accessible Nebbiolo bottling, drawn from La Morra parcels and aged in a mix of barrique and larger wood. It delivers the variety's signature cherry and dried rose character with relatively early tannin resolution and enough grip to take food.
Above it sit the Dolcetto d'Alba and two Barbera bottlings: a standard Barbera d'Alba and the Cabot du Re, a barrique-aged Barbera that spends 18 months in French oak and emerges with darker, richer fruit.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Barolo Vigna Gattera is the right first bottle from this estate. It is a La Morra Barolo from 1 hectare of estate-owned Nebbiolo, aged in French-oak barriques, then bottled without filtration. The nose opens with ripe cherry and dried rose, the mid-palate has real concentration and depth, and the tannins are fine-grained rather than aggressive. Acidity holds the wine upright through the finish. It is approachable within five to eight years of vintage but rewards another three to five on top of that. Gattera gives the La Morra address, the estate's barrique-led cellar method, and the variety's core character in one bottle.