Domenico Clerico: The Wild Aeroplane of Monforte and the Crus He Chose
From a small Monforte farm in 1976 to Ginestra, Mosconi and Serralunga: how Domenico and Giuliana Clerico built a Barolo house.
Il Vino Bello ·
In 1976 a farmer in Monforte d'Alba asked his son whether he wanted to take over the family land. It was four or five hectares, and the grapes went to the village cooperative. The son said yes, and with his wife Giuliana he set out to prove that this corner of the Langhe could make great wine. Fifty years on, Domenico Clerico is one of the best-known names in Barolo, and two of its wines are on this autumn's 2027 award lists.
A small farm and a letter to Papà
The estate tells its own beginning in Domenico's voice. His father grew grapes, delivered them to the cantina sociale and sold "a modest quantity of fruit" at the local markets. It was, in Domenico's words, a typical small Piemonte farm. When the question came in 1976, he answered with a line the winery still prints: "Dear Papà, it is a great honour for me to carry on the business you created in a lifetime of hard work" (our translation).
From the start, he says, the work that mattered was in the rows: "convinced that to get good wines you have to raise the vine with love and dedication". The only way to make great wine, he decided, was to own great vineyards. So he set about buying them, one plot at a time.
The first wine he built on was humble. Visadì, first made in 1978 from three hectares of Dolcetto, was meant to find excellence in "the grape most drunk in every Langhe family" (our translation). It is still made, aged in steel.
Bussia, Ginestra, Mosconi: the crus he chose
In 1977 Domenico bought a small plot "in the heart of Bussia", and from it came his first Barolo. Briccotto was first made in 1978, from a few rows in Bussia Soprana planted in 1965. The estate says that from the same nine rows it now gets about 1,000 bottles, and only in years when the weather helps: since the first vintage it has been bottled just 12 times.
A few years later came Ginestra. Ciabot Mentin, first made in 1982, takes its name from a ciabot, a little house in the vines used to shelter tools, and from Mentin, the man Domenico bought the plot from. The name stayed, as tradition wants: "the owners pass, the land remains" (our translation). The estate calls it the wine that first made Domenico known around the world. A second Ginestra plot gives Pajana, first made in 1990 and named after an old road along the top of the hill that once linked Monforte and Serralunga and can still be walked.
In 1995 Domenico and Giuliana chose a south-facing vineyard in the Mosconi cru, planted in 1968, for the wine they meant to be their most important. They named it Percristina, in tribute to their daughter. It is made only in the best vintages and spends about ten years at the estate before release.
The wild aeroplane
Domenico's father had a nickname for him: l'aeroplano selvatico, the wild aeroplane. In 2006 the grown-up aeroplane looked beyond Monforte and tried a new terroir, a vineyard in the Baudana cru of Serralunga d'Alba, planted in 1994. The Barolo it gives carries the nickname in dialect: Aeroplanservaj. The winery's text for it ends with a legend "of a child who never grew up, who always wanted to fly without rules, wild in soul and heart" (our translation).
That restlessness also shows in Arte, a Langhe Rosso of 90% Nebbiolo and 10% Barbera made since 1981, which the estate says stands for "our desire to experiment". Writing after Domenico's death, the wine writer Jeremy Parzen placed him among the producers who began ageing Barolo in small French barriques in the 1980s, and recalled that in his last years Domenico spoke openly about moving away from small casks and back to the traditional large botti. Even then, Parzen wrote, he credited the fruit rather than the cellar for his wines.
Giuliana and the team today
Domenico died at home in Monforte in July 2017, aged 67. The estate is now carried on by Giuliana, "the woman who from the very first day saw the project born and grew it with Domenico" (our translation), with the team that has always worked with them. The winemaker is Oscar Arrivabene, who told Grape Collective in 2023 that he had been there about eight years. "We still consider ourselves modernists because we are not satisfied," he said, adding that there is "never a recipe" and that they adjust every year. He also said the estate is "not using so much barrique anymore". The estate's own page notes, with some pride, that an asteroid now carries the name Clerico.
Today the estate has about 21 hectares and makes around 110,000 bottles a year. The range runs from Visadì and the TreVigne Barbera d'Alba to the Langhe Nebbiolo Capisme-e, whose name, the estate says, means "understand me" in Piemontese, a communal Barolo and the crus.
The 2027 guides, and how to visit
This autumn the guides came back to the two wines that define the estate. Gambero Rosso gave Tre Bicchieri to Barolo Ginestra Ciabot Mentin 2022, and Veronelli's Guida Oro gave it Tre Stelle Oro. Barolo Percristina 2016 is one of AIS Vitae's 100 Grandi Vini and also has Veronelli's Tre Stelle Oro. Both appear in our round-up of the most awarded Piemonte wines of 2027, and the wine pages list the other guides that picked them.
The cellar and wine shop at Località Manzoni in Monforte d'Alba are open Monday to Friday from 9.00 to 17.30, and at weekends by appointment. Visits are booked through the estate's website, and private, tailored visits can be arranged on request.
See Domenico Clerico for its wines, awards and how to visit.
Sources
- https://domenicoclerico.com/cantina/
- https://domenicoclerico.com/cielo-e-terra/
- https://domenicoclerico.com/vini/briccotto/
- https://domenicoclerico.com/vini/ciabot-mentin/
- https://domenicoclerico.com/vini/pajana/
- https://domenicoclerico.com/vini/percristina/
- https://domenicoclerico.com/vini/aeroplanservaj/
- https://domenicoclerico.com/vini/visadi/
- https://domenicoclerico.com/vini/arte/
- https://domenicoclerico.com/visite-degustazioni-wine-shop/
- https://dobianchi.com/2017/07/17/barolo-domenico-clerico-obituary/
- https://www.grapecollective.com/oscar-arrivabene-on-the-legacy-of-domenico-clerico-the-barolo-boys-and-the-evolution-of-modernism-in/
- https://vinodabere.it/gambero-rosso-i-tre-bicchieri-2027-del-piemonte/
- https://winenews.it/it/guida-oro-i-vini-di-veronelli-2027-ecco-le-48-stelle-polari-e-i-434-tre-stelle-oro_606901/
- https://aisitalia.it/vitae-2027-i-100-grandi-vini/