Bartolo Mascarello

Bartolo Mascarello (1927 - 12 March 2005) was an Italian oenologist best known for his Barolo wine production. Bartolo joined the family business, Cantina Mascarello, in 1945 and learned winemaking from his father Giulio, who in turn had been trained by his father Bartolomeo.

Mascarello has spent most of his life tending four small vineyards in prime locations: Cannubi, San Lorenzo and Rué in Barolo, and Rocche in La Morra. He preferred the old school of blending these four plots, rather than bottling from a single vineyard.
A teenage partisan during the Second World War, he was nicknamed, along with fellow producers Teobaldo Cappellano and Giuseppe Rinaldi, 'the last of the Mohicans' for his stubborn refusal to let traditions die. For years, Mascarello's adamant stance passed him off as a man of little account among his colleagues and Italian wine critics. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, international and Italian critics launched an assault on traditional Barolo in favour of dark wines with coffee and vanilla sensations from ageing in new barriques. Mascarello became the guardian of the traditional Barolo appellation, clinging tenaciously to the methods taught to him by his ancestors.
The producer - who deplored the transition from large Slavonian barrels to small French oak barriques - even created a special hand-painted label 'No Barrique, No Berlusconi'. He explained: 'No Barrique, because I am against the use of barriques in Barolo - I am a traditional producer. No Berlusconi because I don't like his way of doing politics'. The original hand-painted labels are now a much sought-after item for collectors.
Mascarello, who has had a core of loyal customers from all over the world throughout his career, also began to receive critical acclaim. The Italian wine world was shocked and delighted when in 2002 his wine received an award from Italy's leading wine guide, reversing years of criticism.
Ironic and witty, shortly before his death he declared: 'When the time came to change the oak barrels I made sure to fill every corner of the cellar, so that when I died there would be no room for barriques'. After his death, his daughter Maria Teresa took over the running of the company, following her father's traditional methods. She shuns marketing and promotion and has no website