1981 Bersano 'Cremosina' Barbaresco Riserva DOCG, Piedmont

One bottle available. Forty-five years old.

Bersano was founded in 1907 at Nizza Monferrato and is one of Piedmont's old houses. This is their Barbaresco Riserva from 1981, in the estate's distinctive wide-shouldered Champagnotta bottle.

What "Cremosina" actually means, since most listings get it wrong

Cremosina is not a Barbaresco vineyard. It is a Bersano estate at Nizza Monferrato, about sixty kilometres away, bought from the Counts of Cremosina under a notarial deed of 1912. Eleven hectares of calcareous clay on the left bank of the Belbo, planted to Barbera, and today one of the recognised top sites of the Nizza DOCG. Bersano used the name across its range on labels reading "Antico Podere Conti della Cremosina," so on a Barbaresco it is a house name, not a cru. We mention it because a bottle sold as a single-vineyard Barbaresco would be sold under a false description.

Where this bottle came from

We do not buy wine of this age on the open market. Bottles like this reach us through private collectors we know personally, people who bought long ago and cellared properly ever since. Every rare bottle is inspected in person before we take it, and it stays in temperature-controlled storage from the moment it enters our hands.

The honest read on 1981

An average year in Barbaresco. The vintage guides put it at three stars out of five and describe it as a normal vintage giving delicate, elegant, finely scented wines; Jancis Robinson's Piedmont chart skips 1981 entirely, which tells you something on its own. For contrast, 1980 rates four stars and 1982 rates five.

There is no published critic score for this wine that we could find, and no professional tasting note. At forty-five years old from an average vintage this is a collector's and birth-year bottle, and it is priced as one. Nebbiolo of this age, well kept, can be extraordinary; it can also be tired. We are confident in the storage, not in a promise about the liquid.

The details

• Producer: Bersano, Nizza Monferrato, Asti
• Appellation: Barbaresco DOCG, Riserva. Barbaresco was elevated to DOCG in 1980, so a 1981 is among the earliest bottles legally entitled to carry it.
• Grape: 100% Nebbiolo, as the DOCG requires
• Ageing: at least four years, the legal minimum for Riserva
• Format: 750ml, Champagnotta bottle
• Drinking window: now. Do not hold it.

Serving

Stand upright for two days. Decant gently off the sediment no more than thirty minutes before serving at 60°F, and drink it across the first hour. Braised beef, agnolotti, or aged Castelmagno.

One bottle, shipped from our Florida cellar in protective packaging. Browse more rare and limited vintages.