If you ask a group of Piedmontese winemakers to single out a person to whom they feel grateful, most will answer Renato Ratti. To him, mainly, we owe the greatness of Barolo today – to this man who got into wine without prejudice, without a family history in winemaking behind him. A visionary and an innovator, he saw beyond tradition and dedicated his life to showing what class and elegance a great Nebbiolo could express. We should remember that those were dark years for winemaking in Italy and Piedmont. With only a few exceptions, Barolo was not the world-class wine that it is today. Producers used questionable methods and, as a result, the wines were full of faults. This should come as no surprise, knowing that cellars and barrels were not much looked after, if at all; grapes were not selected at harvest time; vineyard yields were not reduced; and malolactic fermentation was not controlled. In this darkness, Renato Ratti, aided by his talented nephew Massimo Martinelli, shone out for his work of consistently making a good wine by following the proven wine-making procedures he had learned during his trips to Burgundy. More recently, Massimo has been joined by Pietro Ratti (Renato's son) and together they continue the pursuit of excellence in wine-making that Renato started.

With vineyards located in the town of La Morra, today this estate produces three Barolos: the cru Rocca gives life to the finest wines; cru Conca adds more power and tannin; and wine from cru Marcenasco expresses a blend of the characteristics of the first two (and placed seventh among the ten best wines in the world as rated by the Wine Spectator magazine in 2009). But no authentic Piedmontese winemaker can resist producing Barbera and, in the case of Ratti, an awesome one at that. He also makes a great Dolcetto: the simple, everyday wine of the Piedmontese.