Mascarello Giuseppe

The Giuseppe Mascarello winery boasts a rich lineage, which goes back to 1881 when Giuseppe Mascarello purchased his first plot of land in Monforte.  His son Maurizio purchased the Monprivato estate in 1904 which remains the core of the family’s holdings.  

After having spent many years working at the estate with his father, Giuseppe II, Mauro Mascarello made his first wines in 1967.  In 1970 Mauro began to vinify the grapes from his various vineyards separately.  Although Mascarello defines the decade between 1968 and 1977 as one in which he experimented with various vinification techniques, today the wines are made in a very traditional manner.  “There aren’t many of us traditionalists left,” jokes Mascarello.  

Mascarello crafted the 1967 Barolo just as his father had done before him, blending fruit sourced from three vineyards; Monprivato, Villero and Bussia Soprana. The conventional wisdom at the time held that the most complete and complex Barolos were those that combined elements from various sites. Some vineyards were known for their aromatics, others for their fruit and yet other plots were highly regarded for the structural elements they imparted on the wines. But Mascarello yearned for something more. He wanted to make a single-vineyard Barolo, and he thought his Monprivato vineyard was that rare site that could express all of the facets of Nebbiolo on its own.

It took a few years of convincing, but Giuseppe Mascarello finally relented and let his son Mauro make a single-vineyard Barolo in 1970. He also gave Mauro a very valuable piece of advice in directing him to the very best fruit in the Monprivato vineyard. If Mauro was hell-bent on making this wine, Mascarello senior reasoned, he might as well use the parcel in the heart of the vineyard planted with the rare Michet clone, which was known to yield wines of extraordinary power, richness and longevity.

The Monprivato vineyard, located in Castiglione Falletto, is one of the great monopole sites in Piedmont.  The Mascarello family has owned the vineyard, which measures just over six hectares, for over 100 years.  Within Monprivato there had always been a special parcel from which Mascarello hoped to produce a riserva.  In the mid-1980s Mascarello began a quest that would take him over four years to identify the best and most suitable clones of the Michet varietal to plant in the vineyard.  The parcel was finally re-planted in 1988 and Mascarello named the new wine Ca’ d’Morissio (house of Maurizio) in honor of his grandfather.   

Neither Mascarello could have ever predicted how successful Mauro would be. The 1970 Barolo Monprivato turned out to be the archetype for two wines; the modern-day single-vineyard Barolo Monprivato as well as the 100% Michet Barolo Monprivato Riserva Cà d’Morissio, a wine Mascarello finally produced in 1993 after 23 years of research that in reality dates back to vines his grandfather first planted more than 70 years before. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, after 1970 the Michet-only Monprivato was not made again until 1993. This tasting covered all of the Michet Monprivatos plus a number of other reference-point Barolos, just to round out the line-up.