Why buy wine from Barolo & Co

... and choose a small importer.

At a large wine shop you buy a bottle with a label. At Barolo & Co you buy a bottle with a story, and that difference is not just marketing, it lies in how we work.

We are not a wholesaler buying through importers and middlemen. We live among the Barolo vineyards in Serralunga d'Alba, and collect our wines directly from the winemakers we know personally. This gives you three concrete advantages a large webshop cannot offer: direct import without middlemen, personal contact with the producer, and access to wineries that are not available anywhere else in the Netherlands.

100% own import, no middlemen

Large wine shops and liquor stores often buy their Barolo through wholesalers or international distributors, so there are one or more links between the winemaker and your glass. Every link costs money and comes at the expense of the margin the producer keeps, or of the price you pay.

At Barolo & Co we drive to the winemaker ourselves, taste on site, and import the wine directly to the Netherlands. No middlemen, no unnecessary links. That means fairer prices, a shorter line to the source, and wines you simply won't find elsewhere.

We live among the winemakers

For a large part of the year we, Nicolaas and Esmaralda, live in Serralunga d'Alba, one of the eleven villages of the Barolo appellation. From our house, on the road to the Vignarionda vineyard, we look out over Vignarionda, Marenca and Margheria.

This proximity is no coincidence. It means we follow the harvest, know the winemakers personally as friends, and taste new vintages before they are purchased. A buyer who visits Piedmont once a year for a trade fair doesn't have that relationship, we do.

Small wineries you won't find anywhere else

Through our long-standing, personal bond with the winemakers, we hold the exclusive Dutch import for a number of wineries. These are wines you cannot buy at any other Dutch wine shop:

• Fratelli Abrigo (Diano d'Alba)
• La Castella (Roddino)
• Claudio Boggione (Barolo)
• Scarzello (Barolo)
• Ugo Lequio (Neive)
• Oreste Stefano (Monforte d'Alba)

In addition, we carry wines from renowned houses such as Domenico Clerico, Luigi Pira and Germano Ettore, carefully selected, not ordered from an online catalogue.

What this means for you

• Authenticity: every bottle comes with a real story, not just a label.
• Exclusivity: access to wineries that are not for sale anywhere else in the Netherlands.
• Personal advice: we know the wines and the winemakers, and advise based on that knowledge, not on a generic description.
• Fair value for money: without unnecessary middlemen you pay for the wine, not for the links in between.

Frequently asked questions

Why buy from a small importer instead of a large wine shop? Because with a small, specialised importer like Barolo & Co you get access to wines large shops cannot offer, often because we are the exclusive importer, and because personal knowledge of the winemaker and the region translates into better advice.

Is Barolo & Co more expensive than an ordinary liquor store? Not necessarily. Because we buy directly without middlemen, the price is often fairer than you would expect for wine of this quality.

How do I know your wines are really imported directly? We live in Serralunga d'Alba for a large part of the year, in the middle of the Barolo vineyards, and have personal relationships with the winemakers we buy from, no middlemen, no anonymous wholesaler.