The wine reviewed in this year's guide is from the 2022 harvest . The 2021 Bricco dell'Uccellone had already been awarded the same prestigious recognition in the 2025 edition of the special ranking.
Since 2019, the guide has established a special ranking that recognizes the best wines produced predominantly from a single grape variety, among the main ones grown in Italy, both native and international. This year, Bricco dell'Uccellone Braida has once again established itself as the wine that achieved the highest score in its category, in the tasting conducted by the guide's editorial staff.
Bricco dell'Uccellone
There are wines that are loved at first sip. That are remembered. That become part of history. Wines that, in some way, shape history. This is the case with Bricco dell'Uccellone di Braida, first harvested in 1982, now more than 40 years ago.
In a context in which Barbera was considered a grape variety of little prestige, the avant-garde Giacomo Bologna reinterpreted the potential of this grape with a vision open to modernity and internationality.
Giacomo knew how to think big: his "recipe" was based on the selection of crus, much lower-than-usual yields, and the aging of the wine in French oak barrels to give it elegance and structure. These were the main tools he used to reclaim dignity and give new emphasis to one of Piedmont's main grape varieties, ushering in a revolutionary era for Barbera that was quickly seized upon by many other producers.
Three years after the first harvest, when this bottle, then labeled as a "table wine," was released, it was a resounding success. Recognition immediately began pouring in for Bricco dell'Uccellone, so much so that English journalist Jancis Robinson, in her Oxford Companion to Wine, writes under the heading "Barbera":
“The man who first put Barbera on a pedestal, demonstrating that it was a serious wine, was Giacomo Bologna of the Braida winery, whose Bricco dell'Uccellone was the first Barbera to be marketed internationally.”
To seal this journey, in 2019 at Bensberg Castle, Bricco dell'Uccellone Braida received the “Wein Legende” recognition, the first Piedmontese wine to be included in the hall of fame of the most important wines in the world and the third Italian wine.
