Official Maps of Barolo, Barbaresco, Diano d’Alba regions

[Michael Horne]

The Italian consortium responsible for managing the many DOC and DOCG zones in Piemonte have been painstakingly defining and creating official topographical maps of the Barolo, Barbaresco and Diano d’Alba wine making areas.

Unlike the French ‘cru’ system, the winemakers in the Langhe and Roero have used over time various ‘terroir names’ to indicate a quality of terroir, such as Brunate, Cerequio, and Cannubi in Barolo, and Rabajà, Asili and Sori San Lorenzo in Barbaresco. These names have been used by winemakers in their regions for some time on their best bottlings; however, there had never been a formal defining of exactly where the terroir-named production was located.

To avoid abuse of this rather unique and valuable terroir-naming convention in Piemonte, the regional winemaking consortium Consorzio di Tutela Barolo Barbaresco Alba Langhe e Roero (that’s a mouthful!) spent the past ~20 years working with local producers and towns to map out and define their terroir sub-zones.

The result of this grand & noble effort is some remarkably detailed, accurate and quite beautiful maps highlighting the towns and named terroir sub-zones throughout Barolo, Barbaresco and Diano d’Alba.

These are frame-worthy maps that would look great hanging on a kitchen, dining room or wine room wall.  If there’s enough interest, I would be happy to print these up (with the Consorzio’s approval, of course) on high quality paper and make them available.  If you’d like a full-sized printed copy for framing, let me know by leaving a comment below.

You can download these Official Maps by clicking on the following 3 links:

• Official Barolo Map
• Official Barbaresco Map
• Official Diano d’Alba Map

 If you want to learn more about the great work the Consorzio di Tutela Barolo Barbaresco Alba Langhe e Roero is doing, check out their website.

Cheers.
Michael

Michael Horne, CS
Los Gatos, CA USA

[Jay Pulli]

Thank you for posting these pdf maps. Do you know if similar pdf maps exist for the Chianti area?

[Michael Horne]

Ciao Jay — unfortunately, no, I am not aware of Chianti maps with this level of detail publicly and freely available.

However, Alessandro Masnaghetti has some very good maps, and now offers one on Chianti (including the Panzano area) for 7 €.  There’s more info here about his Chianti maps.

Alessandro’s maps can be bought here in the US through Rare Wine Company.  The page for ordering the Chianti map is here.  They cost about $12.95.

Cheers.
Michael

Michael Horne, CS
Los Gatos, CA USA

[John]

Jay Pulli?? The world class photographer? Glad to see you here. Masnaghetti has specific wine maps for each of the communes in Chianti Classico. I painstakingly accumulated them through searches on his website as well as haunting select wine stores in Siena off the Piazza del Campo. They’re great. I have Radda, Castellina, Gaiole, and Panzano, as well as the Bolghieri. I am still searching for Greve. I also have the overall Chianti Classico map Michael referenced. It’s okay, although for some reason Masnaghetti chose not to highlight the commune of Panzano. I guess you can’t please everyone, but I know some locales in which omission of Panzano would be a hangin’ offence.

[Michael Horne]

Hey John — Masnaghetti does have the dedicated Panzano map: http://www.enogea.it/en/product/panzano-2/

I haven't seen his Chianti Classico map up close, you're saying Panzano is conspicuously missing, eh? You're right, that's going to tick off a lot of winemakers in the area. Che strano.

BTW, I've just flown over 10 copies of Masnaghetti's Barolo MGA (the version published & sold in Italy, but with English text) and I will be dropping them into the shop this coming week.

Cheers.

Michael

Michael Horne, CS
Los Gatos, CA USA

[Kwong Yip TO]

Dear Mr. Horne,

I am from Hong Kong, I would like to buy full sized printed copy of those maps, How can I do it?

 

Thanks!

Michael

[Michael Horne]

Hi Michael — good to meet you!  The downloadable Barolo & Barbaresco maps I referenced above can be printed locally in color, but I have an even better resource for you:

• Check out the fantastic Barolo & Barbaresco maps created by Alessandro Masnaghetti (pronounced “mass-nah-gay-tee”) of Enogea.  He has a very complete set of maps that rival the above maps, and they are readily available for purchasing & shipping.  Alessandro has done years of research to develop these maps.
  • You can find his Barolo map here.
  • You can find all of his other maps of Italian wine regions here.
• Alessandro has a distributor in Hong Kong, so you should be able to buy them locally (saving you a lot of money on shipping).   His main distributor contact points are here, but I’ll list 2 of the important ones:
  • USA:  The Rare Wine Company, http://www.rarewineco.com, sales@rarewineco.com
  • Hong Kong: Ginsberg + Chan, shop.winemerchantsasia.com,  hello@ginsbergchan.com

I hope that helps. Best of luck on your map quest! 🙂

Cheers,

Michael

Michael Horne, CS
Los Gatos, CA USA

[Joe Isbell]

We were in Piemonte recently and saw several wineries with raised/3D maps of Barbaresco and Barolo. Do you sell these? And can you ship to US?

Thanks!
Joe

[Michael Horne]

Ciao Joe

The topographical map you’re referring to is produced by the Consorzio di Tutela Barolo, Barbaresco, Alba Langhe e Roero, and currently I think that it is not available here in the US. Their website is http://langhevini.it/

It would be a challenge to ship the map, since it would require a large, thin box (kinda like a pizza box) and the expense might be high.

I will check into availability of the map and follow-up; I’ve had a couple of requests for this very special 3D map.

Cheers.
Michael

Michael Horne, CS
Los Gatos, CA USA

[Nicholasvale]

This map is wonderful. I would love to have this map and frame it. Where can I buy it? Depending on the price I would even be interested in a 3D version of this map with shipping.

[Michael Horne]

Hi Nicolas — it’s available in Italy, which makes it hard to get shipped here to the States.  You can contact the folks at the Consorzio or you may be able to find something on Amazon.it (which ships to the States at a fair price).

I did check into buying the 3D versions of the maps (they’re available in Italy and you see them at all of the major winemaker cantinas), but shipping them to the US is terribly expensive.

You may be better off taking the PDF from here and having it printed large at a local Fedex-Kinkos or another printer, then frame that.

Cheers.

Michael

 

Michael Horne, CS
Los Gatos, CA USA

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