Paolo Scavino

Fiasco, the Italian term for flasks as well as for flop, as in English, is also the name of a slope that descends sharply from the edge of the town of Castiglione Falletto toward the central valley of Barolo. Lorenzo Scavino acquired vineyards there in 1921. After his death, his sons split the property, Alfonso calling his estate Azelia, Paolo calling his simple Paolo Scavino. The latter included 2 hectares of vines at the crest of what is known in the local patois as Bric del Fiasc. The wine that has carried that curious name since 1978 has risen to the summit of Barolo, thanks to the awesome drive and self-discipline of Paolo’s son Enrico. As a reformist with a prophetic nature, Enrico Scavino sees considerable room fro improvement in wines from all the native vines of Piedmont. But most of his endless toil in vineyards and cellars is dedicated to the higher cause of Nebbiolo and Barolo. Gradually Enrico has acquired more plots to produce Barolo from the famed Cannubi and Rocche dell’Annunziata sites, while creating a blend called Carobric, From 13 hectares of vineyards, he produces about 80,000 bottles a year, including excellent DOC Barbera d’Alba and Dolcetto d’Alba. None of the other quite equals the splendor of the Bric del Fiasc, which even from lesser vintages shows uncommon concentration, harmony and poise, the results of low yields, studied extraction of coloring, flavoring and structural components and finding in French oak. Enrico, who greets praise for his wines with the same sort of skeptical expression with which other field criticism, insists that his winemaking leaves plenty of room for improvement. He explains that his is a generation of transition charged with leading Piedmontese wine from an erratic past toward an illustrious future. “Barolo will always be different from the other wines of the world,” he once said. “But when we reach out optimum, it will be second to none.”