Roagna
Paje Vecchie Viti
Barbaresco
2015

The producer

Currently run by 5^th generation, Luca, the Roagnas have 16 ha of vineyard split between Barbaresco and Barolo, and with parcels in some of the region’s finest vineyards, including Asili, Paje and Montefico in Barbaresco and the monopole cru La Rocca e Le Pira in Barolo. Vineyards are grown organically, without any chemicals or fertilizers, and Luca believes in biodiversity as one of the main methods for achieving vine health.

The wine

Fruit for the Asili Vecchie Viti cuvee is sourced from a minimum of 50-year-old vines in Roagna’s 0.22-hectare plot, located in the middle of the hill, in the eponymous vineyard. The soil is rich in limestone and marl with sand veins. Fermentation and maceration take place in large wooden casks and is followed by ageing in neutral oak barrels for around 5 years. Production is extremely limited with only around 1,000 bottles being made of each vintage. Each bottle is numbered. Powerful and firm yet immensely silky tannins, this is a wine of delicious balance, concentration, and length, and one of the region’s finest.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.