Marisa Bacher

Marisa is a native of Valsesia in northern Piedmont, where her family raised dairy cows at the foot of the majestic Monte Rosa, one of the Alps’ highest peaks. Her career path took her south to Barolo, where she has worked with Mario Fontana at Cascina Fontana in Castiglione Falletto since 2016. She had her eye on making her own wine from the start, and when an opportunity to rent a small plot of heirloom Dolcetto and Barbera vines in the neighboring town of Monforte came up two years ago, she jumped on it.

Like many of the towns throughout the region, grape vines are literally everywhere you look in Monforte. But Marisa‘s 1 hectare hilltop plot, only accessible by an unpaved private road, catches the eye with its gnarly old vines and unencumbered views over the surrounding valleys. 

More importantly, the parcel —  previously tended by a local resident to make his house wines —  is unusual in the area for its high percentage of Dolcetto d’Alba. 

Throughout the last few decades, Dolcetto (along with similarly reduction-prone grapes like Barbera d’Alba) has been consistently ripped out across the region in favor of Nebbiolo, a grape that’s easier to farm and far more profitable on the international market. Marisa says the base vine material was one of the principal attractions for her to the spot. She firmly believes in maintaining the region’s diversity of varietals, and thinks that historical grapes like Dolcetto can produce beautiful, drinkable wines (she’s not alone, some top producers still continue to produce a small amount of excellent Dolcetto every year).

In a moment when a lot of Piedmont’s young winemakers are headed way up north to farm grapes in the foothills of the Alps, Marisa is part of a small group of outsiders who have been lucky enough to stake out their own small part of Barolo and will help shape the future of this rich region.

This is her first vintage being brought to market – she produced only 200 bottles of her first  vintage in 2020. 

Her eponymous wine, Rosso Bacher, is vinified in cement and then aged in  steel during the winter before passing the spring in fiberglass tanks until bottling at the end of April.