A few good Langhe Nebbiolos have been mentioned here, I’ll add Cavallotto’s Langhe Nebbiolo is also very good at $30. Their Friesa is also a good value in that same price range.
I’ll give a +1 to Pelaverga from Fratelli Alessandria.
If you can find it, I’ve enjoyed Burzi’s Barolo. They’re a smaller producer and import a lot of their wine to Norway. But since they’re smaller they don’t have many holdings, therefore their Normale has pretty high quality fruit.
The Adriano Marco e Vittorio Barbarescos are more modern, but a killer value at under $30.
Some recent and/or perennial winners in this category include:
Calabretta Cala Cala, excellent mv cuvee for a silly low price
Calabretta VV, can sometimes be had under $30 and current release is the '14 so these come with age and depth, though I do think the ‘14 in particular needs more time.
Cantalupo Agamium, a great value in strong vintages and we’re looking at a string of them.
Antoniolo Juvenia
Alessandro Rivetto Nebbiolo Langhe, just a really satisfying LN, consistent over many bottles
Ca’ Nova LN and Barbaresco
Cavallotto LN and Dolcetto
Don’t forget Sicily
2020 Il Poggione Rosso di Montalcino
Terrific wine just entering early drinking window. This should get even better with a bit of age. Punches well above the $26 price.
I have some bottles of the 2019 left, tried one last year and thought it could get better with some more time … your comment makes me think to open one soon, and yes, well worth the price
My costco has had this for a few months. Bought one to try, loved it, went back for a lot more!
Just had a 2019 Sassetti Livio Pertimali Rosso di Montalcino and its such a great bottle, expecially for the sub 20 bucks price point I paid 2 years ago, coming from the famous Montesoli hill side, no less. Highly recommended Brunello light, great QPR, happy to have 5 bottles remaining.
I bought a good bit of the '16, at a silly price, and it showed huge bottle variation. Some bottles were excellent, others seemed stewed or cooked, many had significant sediment. One bottle had an entire extra cork in it.
2019 Il Poggione Rosso di Montalcino - good value, nice bottle opened today
excellent wine and expect the 21 to be as good. Will give those another year or 2.
Out of interest I pumped this thread into ChatGPT and asked it to list each producer mentioned. Pretty cool that you can do this. I don’t have the energy to check each but looks accurate!
Here are some of the wine producers mentioned in the thread:
it had missed many… I yelled at it to check its work and it found a few more.
First, I wonder how much of its “work” was found from Wineberserkers. I’d guess a ton based on those results.
Second, while I actually agree with much of the list, I don’t see how that has a ton of value if you don’t have individuals suggesting the wines where you can check their work and see if their tastes are reliable. For instance, Vallana is awesome, but Planeta sucks. Nervi-Conterno isn’t much of a value, and neither are a few of the others.
All that said, there are some good producers and good values on that list.
Looking over this I do think this is a solid list. Since posting this I have sought out about 75% of the producers mentioned and have been very happy to have done so. My definition of value has changed, I think I started out with wines I could buy and drink on a Tuesday night and be happy about, now it is much more defined by wines that I think are excellent quality for their price point. I think its also overly simplistic to just say Italian wine… definitely a flaw of my early / uneducated approach here.
Anyways… thanks for all of the posts above, they definitely helped guide my learning process.
I tried to list out some of my favorite producers from above and here are some that I do not see mentioned (forgive me if I missed your mention above)
I do not think these are listed above
From the list:
Haha, gotcha. I thought it curated that from the internet somehow. Bit groggy this morning.
All good. Chat GPT does have some knowledge of wine but I don’t think I would trust it that much.
I am mostly surprised that it can review threads in this forum and kick out summaries very quickly. I enjoy reading these threads but it is nice to know that I can get caught up quickly on something like Bordeaux 2023 which has > 1800 posts so far.
It is like a 6th grader summarizing it but I think thats ok.
Is it able to read an entire thread once it gets reasonably long, or just the initial portion that loads? I had to copy and paste each segment in another longer thread to get a full summary.
Two of my favorite bargain Sangioveses
2019 Fattoria Selvapiana Villa Petrognano Pomino DOC $19.99 from FullPull- this is a blend of Sangiovese, Cab Sauv and Merlot
2020 Chiara Condello Sangiovese Romagna Predappio DOC
I think this was like $24?
