Alario Claudio

Diano d’Alba, Piemonte

The vineyards are part of our family: we know them metre by metre; we cultivate them now with the same passion we did on day one, and we work in the cellar with the sole aim of preserving the unique characteristics of each vineyard. - Alario Claudio

If you spend any time in the hills of Diano d’Alba, sooner or later, you hear the name Claudio Alario. Not because he’s chasing fame, but because his wines quietly carry the story of a family that has believed in this land for more than half a century.

The Alario story begins with Claudio’s grandfather, Matteo Alario, a sharecropper in the Langhe who managed vineyards in La Morra, working with Nebbiolo destined for Barolo. In 1963, during a time when many people were leaving the countryside for factory jobs in Alba, Turin, and Milan, Matteo made the opposite choice. He bought vineyards in Diano d’Alba and committed the family’s future to the land.

Claudio grew up among those vines. By the time the late 1980s arrived and international interest in the wines of the Langhe was beginning to rise, he decided it was time for the family to bottle their own story. In 1988, he released the first wines under the Alario Claudio label, focusing on the traditional grapes of the region: Dolcetto, Barbera, and Nebbiolo.

If you talk to Claudio, one thing becomes clear very quickly: he doesn’t think about vineyards as plots on a map. He talks about them almost like family members. He knows them metre by metre,  their soils, their exposures, the way the wind moves across a slope in late September. For him, terroir is the meeting point between nature and the responsibility of the grower.

That philosophy shows most clearly in his work with Dolcetto, the historic grape of Diano d’Alba. While many producers have replaced Dolcetto with Nebbiolo or Barbera, Claudio doubled down on it. Today he produces three single-vineyard Dolcetto di Diano d’Alba, each from a different Sorì - a local term for a hillside with its own personality.

At Sorì Montagrillo, a one-hectare parcel planted in 1990 with south-eastern exposure, sandy marl soils yield wines that feel bright and generous. It is the sort of Dolcetto that seems to capture the warmth of the hillside itself. Higher on the slope lies Sorì Costa Fiore, the estate’s most historic vineyard. Planted in the 1950s and perched at the crest of a natural amphitheatre, the old vines grow in marl-limestone soils touched with clay. Here, the wines gain a different voice, with firmer structure, deeper concentration, and a freshness that hints at surprising longevity. Then there is Sorì Pradurent, the highest site at nearly 450 metres above sea level. Limestone and tufa dominate the soils, and the altitude brings a tension and depth that elevates the Dolcetto into something almost architectural, darker, more layered, and powerful.

Claudio approaches these sites with almost surgical precision. Each wine is vinified separately, because in his view, the purpose of the cellar is not to shape the wine into something new, but to preserve what the vineyard already says.

But the estate doesn’t stop with Dolcetto. Claudio also farms vineyards dedicated to Barbera and Nebbiolo, including sites near Serralunga d’Alba and Verduno, where he produces Nebbiolo d’Alba and Barolo. Working with Nebbiolo is something Claudio approaches with both humility and excitement. He often describes it as a challenge that demands patience, discipline, and respect at every stage of the growing season.

Despite modern equipment in the cellar, the Alario philosophy remains fundamentally traditional. Great wine, Claudio insists, starts in the vineyard. The family manages yields carefully, sometimes sacrificing quantity to ensure concentration and balance. Every wine then rests in the cellar after bottling, allowing the rough edges of youth to soften before it reaches the table.

Today the estate represents three generations of the Alario family, with a fourth already beginning to take part in the work. And if you ask Claudio what success looks like, he doesn’t talk about scores or markets. For him, success is much simpler. It’s opening a bottle somewhere in the world and knowing that inside it, you can taste a specific hillside in Diano d’Alba, and the quiet persistence of a family that never stopped believing in it.