Villa Sparina, Rivalta Barbera del Monferrato Superiore 2017

Barbera is Piemonte's great democratiser — more widely planted than Nebbiolo, less celebrated, and frankly underestimated. Villa Sparina's Rivalta takes the grape seriously, spending time in oak to add structure without flattening the variety's most thrilling quality: that piercing, electric acidity that cuts through anything you put in front of it. At nine years old, this 2017 is settling into something genuinely satisfying, the fruit rounded, the oak integrated, the whole thing feeling purposeful and composed. Monferrato is gentler hill country than the Langhe — less grand, less fashionable, but quietly capable of real quality. The Superiore designation demands longer ageing than standard Barbera del Monferrato, and you feel it here. This is a wine for the dinner table, not the trophy cabinet, and we mean that as a compliment.