How about we start this in the corniest, touristy-est way possible?

“Ah, Piemonte. Its silences. Its languid villages; its sleepy hill towns. And, of course, its hills, impassive in the face of a changing world, draped in vines. The history they have seen. The memories they hold.”

Okay. That’s enough. And yet, the last sentence is definitely true for Flavio Roddolo, one of Piemonte’s longest-running and most traditional winemakers. 

During a visit last year, he stood in the backyard of his farmhouse in Monforte D’Alba, pointing out his vines—Barbera, Dolcetto, Nebbiolo, and, oddly enough, Cabernet Sauvignon—on hillsides near and distant, and was struck by a memory. He paused for a moment. Turned to his visitors. 

He realized, he said, that he was standing in the exact same spot he remembered his mother standing, long ago, when she would call his father and him (by his childhood nickname, Vigo), to come in from the vines for lunch. 

“The story starts here,” he murmured.

Where, much later, it still continues. 

I say “long ago” and “much later” because Roddolo started helping his dad with those vines when he was five. This year, Roddolo will turn 77. If that doesn’t give you the scope of his life in wine, and how tightly he is bound to that land and those vines, perhaps this will: in 2025, Roddolo will produce his 58th vintage. His grandparents built the farmhouse that overlooks them—the one whose backyard he was standing in, and the one in which he still lives and makes his wines.

I can think of only two winemakers whose  tenure in Piemonte exceeds Roddolo. One is Lorenzo Accomasso, who turned 90 last year and made his first vintages at his eponymous estate back in the early fifties. The other is Mauro Mascarello of Giuseppe Mascarello, who’s in his late eighties and whose first vintage was 1967. 

Piemonte is, perhaps, unique among the world’s top-tier wine destinations, in how the region remains relatively unchanged by the tidal wave of attention and money that long ago washed over such places. (We could make something of an exception for the tiny village of Barolo itself, but no one will ever mistake its main drag for Napa Valley’s Highway 29.) It remains a stubbornly traditional place. And unlike Napa or Bordeaux, it’s a place where, I’d argue, the energy, excitement, and mojo has shifted from its modernists and back to its traditional producers—your Giacomo Conternos, your Bartolo and Giuseppe Mascarellos, your Burlottos and Cappellanos. 

Roddolo is one of Piemonte’s ultratraditionalists, which, in the context of this region, is really saying something. As with Accomasso, there is a rather aggressive take-it-or-leave-it-ness to his wines. They are extremely honest, even brutally so: tannic, slow to develop, innocent of any oak or winery techniques that soften their rustic edges. Cellartracker denizens rue their inconsistency. They do not approach you with seduction in their eyes. They don’t make much of an attempt to ingratiate. I mean, Roddolo’s own U.S importer, Jan D’Amore, describes them (and the man who makes them) as “introverted, brooding, and intense.”

They are not always easy to love. 

Which, I gotta say, I absolutely love. 

When you closely consider them, there is a core—an earthiness, a complexity, a rusticity, and even a wildness, all battling with a rough-hewn beauty—that, ultimately, draws you in. Despite all the caveats above, sometimes they’re just pure magic. I’ve enjoyed several bottles of his 2012 Nebbiolo D’Alba. Every one of them was just gorgeous. 

And I can’t help but think it’s ridiculously cool that what this very humble winemaker has been doing pretty much his entire sentient life, has, in the last few years, struck a nerve with American wine drinkers generations younger than him. His tiny production now disappears quickly from the shelves of stores clued-in enough to stock them. His importer pegs his yearly output at 20,000 bottles. Roddolo declined to put a number on it, except to say it shifts around from year to year—possibly because he does not release his wines according to anything resembling a set schedule. 

If you want to taste an unadorned  Piemonte of the past—the one that's, you know, only truly remembered by those hills—made by someone who’s been making them that way forever, well, the wines made by this soft-spoken, somewhat monastic, and extremely dedicated seventysomething are pretty tough to beat.

Some great winemakers have giant egos. (In fairness, some not-so-great winemakers have giant egos, too.) Roddolo is not one of them. I’m not saying this in the standard ‘dude just wants to make wine and commune with his vines’ way. This is a guy who finds the entire notion that people are excited about his wines—and perhaps any wine—kind of strange. 

Really. When I asked him how Piemonte has changed in his decades of working in the vineyards and his tiny cellar, he mostly expressed wonderment at the entire idea of people coming to Piemonte because the region’s majestic wines drew them there. “It doesn’t make sense,” he shrugged. “It’s only wine.”

Well . . . sure, I guess. Though, as everyone reading The New Wine Review understands, there’s wine, and then there’s wine. Roddolo originally only sold his wine in demijohns. In time, people noticed that it wasn’t, well, just wine. Somewhere around 1990—Roddolo isn’t sure of the exact year—the Slow Food folk contacted him and convinced him to start selling his wine in standard bottles. Shortly thereafter, Slow Food suggested he try growing Cabernet on a hillside by his farmhouse. Roddolo was, he admits now, a bit nervous about this idea—his operation is teeny, and such a test planting would represent a lot of work. But he planted those vines in 1992. 

Those grapes go into his Langhe Bricco Appiani bottling, which is 100 percent Cabernet. I am, to put it mildly, not a Super Tuscan guy, or a guy who thinks Bordeaux varieties should be planted everywhere. And while I do love old-school Napa reds, I don’t tend to think of Cabernet as a grape that is top-tier when it comes to transmitting terroir. Still, Roddolo’s Bricco Appiani fairly screams of its Piemontese origins—assuming, that is, that such a honestly grown and crafted wine could scream. While it’s a wine made from a (very) unusual grape for its region, it’s unquestionably of its region. 

That wine, which is matured for two years in very old wood casks (Roddolo is the kind of winemaker who prefers not to get new barrels unless he absolutely has to), is then stored in steel tanks until Roddolo feels the wine is ready, which generally takes around 10 years. 

You read that correctly.  Roddolo’s release schedule is pretty easy to understand: he refuses to until he feels they’ ready. When I asked him why, he had a pretty simple explanation: he likes drinking older wines. At times, he seems somewhat mezzo-mezzo on the idea of selling his wines at all.  

The current release for his Dolcetto is 2017—this, for the wine that even great Piemonte houses push out the door quickly and intend for early drinking. When I visited with him last year and tasted his 2012 Barbera—the then-current release, my initial instinct was ‘not ready yet.’ (That Roddolo has, as of March 2025,  yet to release a 2013 Barbera indicates that that one’s developing more slowly still.) Meanwhile, when he showed us his cellar, he gestured towards a cask that still was still full of wine from 2010. It wasn’t ready yet to bottle, he said.

I’d been warned before I visited Roddolo that I shouldn’t expect much. That he might choose to say very little. That he might be a bit ornery, or even a lot ornery. None of that was the case. He stood with us in his backyard—surrounded on three sides by his vines—for damn near an hour, answering every question and telling stories. He showed great patience with the somewhat laborious process: I don’t speak Italian, and he speaks no English, and therefore every question and response had to be mediated through a translator.  He did all that with considerable grace, then took us through his cellar, then sat us down at a kitchen table to taste. 

Somewhere in there, I asked him a fairly standard question: Historically, what Piemonte wines, or producers, were really important to you?

He thought for a moment. 

A long time ago, he said, he knew a very small-scale winemaker who lived nearby. (If I recall correctly, as he said this he pointed to some hillsides to the left of his farmhouse.) His name was Luigi, Roddolo continued, and Luigi made very good Dolcetto.  

And this, too, I absolutely love.  

FLAVIO RODDOLO TASTING NOTES

2017 Flavio Roddolo Dolcetto D’Alba ($31)

Brooding, with a deep earthiness amid persistent sour cherry notes. Black pepper, fresh herbs, and occasional hints of bitter chocolate, with grippy tannins on the finish. More finesse and more fruit than the 2016. A remarkably serious and layered wine for the price. 

2016 Flavio Roddolo Dolcetto (NA)

Inky in the glass. Serious Piemonte dirt on the nose. Dark cherries at the end, a hint of volatile acidity.

2012 Flavio Roddolo Barbera D’Alba ($59)

Lots going on here: high-toned raspberry-like red berry fruit, a miscela of herbs, excellent acidity, and a streak of iron running throughout. And, amazingly enough, when tasted in 2024, still wound rather tight. As of this writing Roddolo has yet to release his 2013 Barbera. 

2013 Flavio Roddolo Nebbiolo D’Alba ($80)

More of a tannic bite than in the 2012—a gorgeous vintage for this wine, one worth buying if you find it—and still somewhat shy and withholding when tasted at Roddolo’s farmhouse. Excellent typicity, for both the region and producer–strawberries, cherries, and subtle herbal notes.

2010 Flavio Roddolo Bricco Appiani Langhe Rosso ($80)

100 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, from vines planted in 1992. An extremely earthy expression of Cabernet, one far more redolent of Piemonte dirt than anything else. Thyme-y, peppery, brooding, crushed black rocks, and an appealing and distinctly Italianate note of bitterness. Still significant tannic grip even after a decant and 15 years. Autumnal; for red meats and rich preparations that can tame the last of its tannins.

2009 Flavio Roddolo Bricco Appiani Langhe Rosso (NA)

100 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, from vines planted in 1992. A very unique expression of the grape. Currant fruit is present amid a deep Piemonte earthiness, and while muted in comparison to many of the world’s Cabernets, it’s more upfront here than in other Roddolo bottlings. Gentler tannins than his Nebbiolo-based wines, though there’s still some grip. A hint of mint adds interest. 

2013 Flavio Roddolo Barolo Ravera ($150)

Classic tar and sweet flowers nose, along with a non-trivial hint of acetone/VA when first poured, though it quickly blows off. Tannins and acidity are very present and rugged at first, albeit with a tantalizing nugget of pure Piemonte fruit buried within. After a couple of hours on the decanter, the wine resolves into a remarkable typicity, albeit with a rasp of tannins that come up during its admirable length. Buy now and bury for a few years; decant hours in advance if serving before then.