“What am I looking at?” The question, asked while passing a row of terracotta jars, sums up the moment perfectly: at Ghisolfi, you do not expect to come across amphorae in the middle of the traditional wooden casks of Barolo.

“Since last year, we have started a small experiment,” Davide explains. “Using amphorae in addition to the classic ageing in wood.”

This choice is not an aesthetic whim. It is the direct consequence of decades of adjustments in the face of a changing climate. “In the past, like most estates in the region, we used a lot of small barrels, barriques, with wooden casks that did not exceed 20 hectolitres,” Davide says. But global warming has made the task more difficult: obtaining a wine that remains fresh and capable of ageing well, especially on the clayey and tannic soils of Montforte. The result: Barolos that, at the time of their release, already showed notes that were too evolved.

The answer was to slow down this evolution — by moving to larger and larger casks. Today, the cellar only uses vessels of 20 to 44 hectolitres, and has definitively abandoned barriques, whose new wood, over long ageing periods, made the wines too heavy.

The amphora was born from this same logic, a step further. “We thought we could try amphorae, because in terms of volume, they are quite close to barriques in terms of the wine's evolution,” Davide explains. The advantage: clay does not impart any woody taste — a real asset for Barolos which, by nature, already carry a lot of tannin and wood. The sought-after result: more fragrant, more elegant wines.

There is no question, however, of putting all their eggs in the clay basket. “We are not talking about doing the entire ageing process in amphora, that is not possible,” Davide specifies. The process remains a hybrid: the classic ageing in wood continues as always, followed by a finishing of a few months in amphora — an adjustment, not a revolution.

The sequel to this story — and other experiments from the cellar — coming soon on Langhe Stories.