Barolo, a wine from far away " ?" Do you want to fall in love with Barolo I asked Chris Meier, while we discussed how we were going to write a book on the subject. "If so, you'll have to spend a lot of time in the Langhe, Barolo's birth-place. You'll need to become familiar with this land and its scents, with its people and its seasons, traces of all of which are to be found in the wine". We started to taste Barolo together, a different one for each time we met up, looking for inspiration. But Barolo isn't an easy wine to get to know: in fact, at first approach it can leave you perplexed, can present a real challenge. commented Chris, who'd just returned from California. Modern Barolo's much easier, Get used to that taste of new wood and you'll never want anything else. "That may be", I replied, reminding him that I know California like the back of my hand, "but, you see, for me it isn't quite that simple. There's my past all wrapped up in this, my childhood, my unconscious, over thirty years of what my people have taught me". We were drinking an aperitif together in Alba's Calissano Café at about 8 o'clock on a July evening, just when the light was getting low, silhouetting the imposing bulk of the cathedral, whose medieval bricks gradually lose the burnt red tint they possess during the day and, through a trick of the light, assume a lighter, almost pinkish-rose colouring. "You see, Chris, when I was small, my father used to tell me that the colour of old Barolo is like that of Alba cathedral in the dusk. Isn't that wonderful? It's just a moment, I know, because the nuances of colour change according to the light and time of day but it's this very fleetingness which confers perfection, which closes the circle. If you want something else, you'll have to look for it at another hour of the day. You think too much about the past. "I have to in order to understand where I come from. I didn't invent Barolo. Someone else thought of it long before I did and I need to know what they were thinking too. I need to create a link with the past - without this, we lose our cultural heritage, we become presumptuous. But, as you like to think about the future, tell me what you see". I see a dynamic wine, a wine that travels the world and is in constant evolution, a product capable of dominating new markets, that can compete with the world's greatest reds.