The estate's oak-aged Chardonnay in magnum: fermented in French oak, nine to ten months on the fine lees with bâtonnage. A litre and a half that ages more slowly and lasts longer.
Deep golden yellow with a golden core. The nose is rich and layered: ripe peach and pineapple, behind them hazelnut, butter and a light smoky spice from the French oak; thanks to the large format the whole reads younger than a 2022 in bottle. The palate is full and creamy, with the almost unctuous texture that stirring the lees produces and enough acidity underneath to hold it all up. The oak lends structure and length rather than flavour of its own. The finish is long and faintly saline. Serve at 10 to 12 degrees and uncork it a good half hour ahead.
Cantina Francone has worked out of Neive, in the heart of Barbaresco, since 1892. Five generations on, Marco and Fabrizio Francone run the family estate, whose reputation rests above all on the Gallina hill: a south-facing cru listed on Renato Ratti's historic map of Barbaresco crus.
The Chardonnay for I Patriarchi grows in Neive, on hillside ground with a good share of marl and sand. The site catches a cool evening breeze — exactly what a white grape needs in a region built around red.
Picking is by hand into crates in mid-September. In the press the must gets a brief maceration on the skins, after which fermentation begins in French oak barrels and barriques from Allier and the Vosges. There the wine stays until the summer after harvest, with regular bâtonnage.
Few magnums are filled. The estate makes some hundred thousand bottles a year in total; the large format is a small and deliberate exception within that.
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