Diego Conterno, Barolo “Ginestra”

Monforte d’Alba is one of the key villages in the Barolo DOCG zone. In addition to being home to a lot of people named Conterno, Monforte’s vineyard landscape also includes one of the purest southern exposures in the entire Barolo appellation: the “Ginestra” vineyard. This site is one of Barolo’s undisputed Grand Crus, with an all-star roster of legendary producers farming pieces of it (many of them named Conterno). It is in every way the Barolo big leagues, but while Diego Conterno’s eponymous label may be relatively new, he’s hardly a rookie: He literally grew up in the Ginestra cru, and the parcel he now farms and features in a vineyard-designate bottling is within the subsection called “Sorì Ginestra,” which boasts the most perfect southern exposure of all. Diego, along with his cousin, Claudio, was part of the team that established the Conterno-Fantino winery in 1982, but in 2000, Diego struck out on his own, producing his first vintage under his own name in 2003. But unlike the