2019 Giacomo Borgogno No Name Nebbiolo Langhe 750 ml

When critic Antonio Galloni calls a Nebbiolo from Italy’s Langhe region “one of the best values in the world of wine,” most readers would assume he’s talking about a bargain Barolo—although great values in that high-dollar region are an endangered species. 

Borgogno’s No Name hails from three of the most celebrated Barolo Crus—Cannubi, Fossati, and Liste—but it’s not technically Barolo, and that’s by design. Giacomo Borgono purposefully declassifies some of their best estate fruit as a protest—and bottles them here as a stellar value.

That nondescript label is where the dissimilarities end. Borgogno’s single-vineyard wines from the very same sites go for $120+ per bottle, and in the words of our Master Sommelier, Sur Lucero, No Name is “textbook Barolo, if tasted blind.” That’s why he poured it by the glass at Napa’s preeminent Italian bistro, Oenotri, from its very first vintage. 

Giacomo Borgogno & Figli has a renowned history of bottling exceptional Barolo, with a legacy tracing back to 1761. In 1871, it was Borgogno Barolo that was flowing at the official dinner celebrating the Italian Risorgimento (Unification).

In 2005, Borgogno experimented with an ever-so-slightly more modern style. The bureaucratic red tape of Italy is almost as famous as its wine, and Borgogno was promptly denied DOCG status for that cask of Barolo—it was cited as too “stylistically irregular” to be considered Barolo. Really? For a 250-year-old estate? The owners had a good laugh, then decided to get even. 

They didn’t go as far as Mouton-Rothschild in France, the estate that lobbied for decades until they were elevated from a Second Growth to a First Growth. Instead, every year, in quiet, hushed-laughter dissent, Borgogno goes rogue—and No Name is the delicious result.