.. Ars Longa Vita Brevis!

Melchior, Gaspar & Balthazar, the three wise men are on their way to Bethlehem using their GPS of the day ‘El Cosmos’. And ‘en route’ they bumped into their chum Nebuchadnezzar who suggested to them that they stop for a ‘quickie’ somewhere nearby in Northern Italy. It of course turned out to be quite an event. And with little encouragement they twisted the arm of their generous host to open up something special to celebrate the oncoming birth of Jesus.

Nebu scrambled around down in the cellar and came back up, extra hands needed, with a huge bottle of red wine. One of the largest bottles that they had infact ever seen.

A 1955 Barolo ‘Monfortino’ Giacomo Conterno (13ltrs) in a Quarto di Brenta, which used to be a hollow measure, around Turin & Piedmont, of about 55 litres back in the day.

It’s the bottle that wine enthusiasts would love to drink at least once in their lives these days. It has a market value today of around D25,000, making it undoubtedly the most expensive wine in Italy. A collector’s item of course. Giacomo Conterno’s 1955 Monfortino is an iconic wine. But is there anyone who has had the courage to open such a bottle? Thanks to Nebuchadnezzar and the very much contemporary Marcello Brunetti, the helper and organizer of the modern day celebration, and for his chum Roberto Barchi, who has been searching for, selecting, and selling old bottles for over thirty years, the beauty of these bottles lies in the opening of them.

One can certainly ask and debate whether it’s appropriate to let wine prices reach these levels. Or even reflect on the fact that they have become objects that fall outside the normal logic of supply and demand: the higher the price, the more people want them. The purpose of this opening and a tasting like this is precisely to bring wine back down to earth, to it’s true purpose: to be drunk. 

So how can you imagine opening a D25,000 bottle? Only by sharing it with others: Brunetti gathered 70 friends and wine enthusiasts in Reggio Emilia on February 5th, they naturally split the bill.

But this event also had two other goals: to dispel the myth that classifies wines from such old vintages as “expired” and undrinkable, and to emphasize that Italian wines, especially Barolos, have nothing to envy of the great French wines, and that they can age even better than Bordeaux.

So let’s let the wine do the talking.

Upon the opening, which was almost a surgical operation that required time, utmost precision, and obsessive delicacy, especially in removing the oenological oil that protects the wine in the Quarto di Brenta bottle (13ltrs). The 1955 Monfortino  surprises on every level. There’s no oxidation on the nose, and the chromatic notes don’t lean toward orange. The color is vibrant, a bright red that leans toward a dense garnet. On the palate, nothing is out of place. The integrity of the wine and it’s perfect evolution and preservation prevail, accompanied by a unique flavor, composed of some mature notes but also a fragrant fruitiness, a sign of unexpected youth. A wine that has stood the test of time admirably. No wrinkles, no signs of fatigue. 70 years old!  This is the magic of these Italian wines. Excellence that makes us Italians proud to live in a region capable of producing bottles that excite and defy the inexorable passage of time. Thank you to Signor Mortaro for the invitation!

Balthazar = 12 litres
Quarto di Brenta = 13 litres
Nebuchadnezzar = 15 litres

Dear old Roger Scruton once put it: “wine, drunk at the right time, in the right place, and the right company, is the path to meditation.”

19th December 2025, London