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Antica Casa Vinicola Scarpa
Barbera d'Asti from the 1968 harvest, carrying the name of Mario Pesce of Antica Casa Vinicola Scarpa, the Nizza Monferrato house that first took Barbera seriously. Fully mature and gently caramelised: a birth-year gift in a wooden gift box.
No fresh-fruit promises here: almost six decades on, even Barbera's famous acidity carries dried cherry, prune and caramel rather than primary fruit. The note below leans on Scarpa's documented cask-ageing style under Mario Pesce and on the retailer's own description of this bottle.
Expect the scent of an old Nizza Monferrato cellar rather than fresh Barbera: dried cherry and prune shading into leather, forest floor and a balsamic sweetness. Under Mario Pesce, Scarpa aged its reds long in large oak casks, a style that trades primary fruit for exactly this tertiary register, and 1968 was a good, scented Piedmont year that favoured perfume over power.
Cherry
Prune
Tobacco
Forest Floor
Leather
Liquorice
CaramelVintage Wine Gifts reports a medium pale colour and a palate turned sweet and rich with a touch of caramel, which fits Barbera at 58 years: tannin was never the grape's currency and acidity is what endures. That surviving freshness should still carry the dried cherry and caramel across the palate, with real bottle variation a given at this age.
The retailer's note records a long, delightful finish; expect gentle, acid-driven length built on dried fruit rather than grip.
A keepsake from the man who first made Barbera d'Asti serious, harvested in 1968, the very year Pesce bought Scarpa's first estate vineyard, Poderi Bricchi, and two years before the appellation's DOC decree. Buy it as a birth-year or anniversary bottle to open on the day, not as a cellar asset; Scarpa's Barberas still sit near the top of the appellation on Vivino.
Vintage Wine Gifts lists this bottle at £269.97, shipped in a silk-lined wooden presentation box with four accessories and a free personalised gift card. For a 1968 birthday or anniversary the year on the label is the point; the wine is the souvenir.
Scored honestly: this is a high-occasion, low-everyday bottle. It is a birth-year gift and a piece of Barbera history rather than a cellar asset, and the £269.97 price buys rarity and the date on the label, not points-chasing quality.
A 1968 birth-year or anniversary present with the year on the label, gift-boxed with a personalised card by the retailer: occasions are this bottle's whole purpose.
Acidity is the last thing Barbera loses, so the 1968 still earns a table place beside braises, truffle dishes and aged cheeses.
£269.97 buys the 1968 date, Mario Pesce provenance and 58 years of survival, not points: as wine-per-pound it trails young Barbera d'Asti priced from a tenth of that.
A fragile, fully tertiary, bottle-variable red from 1968 needs gentle opening and managed expectations: not a first Barbera.
Scoring is rule-based and deterministic. The model and weightings are documented in our Wine Fit Score methodology.
A compact view of what the Barbera d'Asti denomination actually requires, and how this bottle sits inside it. Pulled from the official Italian disciplinare.
Compare tracked offers from verified retailers at a glance. Stock is shown only where the retailer exposes it. Logos, sale pricing, and the strongest offer are surfaced first.
Vintage Wine Gifts
1968 was a good, elegant year in Piedmont, remembered for velvety, scented wines, and it was also the year Mario Pesce bought Scarpa's first estate vineyard, Poderi Bricchi. Our drinking window closes in 2026: buy it for the date it carries and open it gently.
A good, elegant year in Piedmont, remembered for velvety, scented wines. Barbera was never built for six decades, so treat this as a keepsake: open it for the moment and expect delicate, faded tertiary notes.
A good, elegant year in Piedmont, remembered for velvety, scented wines. Barbera was never built for six decades, so treat this as a keepsake: open it for the moment and expect delicate, faded tertiary notes.
Drink-now / hold guidance reflects general style cues for this wine, not a forecast for a specific bottle. Where vintage-level editorial notes exist, they appear above.
This wine was harvested two years before Barbera d'Asti's 1970 DOC decree; DOCG status arrived in 2008. Today's disciplinare demands at least 90% Barbera from hillside vineyards only, capped at 9 tonnes per hectare, across the provinces of Asti and Alessandria.
Italian wine law sorts bottles into a pyramid. DOCG sits at the top: tightly drawn boundaries, prescribed grapes, mandatory ageing, government tasting before release. DOC is the same idea with looser thresholds. IGT (Indicazione Geografica Tipica) is broader still, requiring only that 85% of the grapes come from the named territory.
Barbera d'Asti is in the DOCG tier. That is not a quality verdict, it is a description of how much freedom the producer has at vinification and ageing.
Barbera d'Asti falls within Piedmont , covering The province of Asti and part of the province of Alessandria: hillside sites only, on clay, silt, sand and limestone soils, mostly between 150 and 400 metres and never above 650; valley-floor, damp and poorly exposed land is excluded..
Barbera was drunk young in the 1960s, not cellared: bottles from the 1968 harvest that survived 58 years intact are counted in handfuls, and scarcity, not fruit quality, sets the price.
Pesce, admired by Bruno Giacosa and Angelo Gaja, made Scarpa the house that first took Barbera seriously; bottles carrying his name from before La Bogliona's 1975 debut carry a collectable premium.
Whoever held this bottle since the late 1960s paid cellarage, insurance and tied-up capital across 58 years; old-vintage specialists price that carry into every surviving bottle.
The £269.97 price includes a silk-lined wooden presentation box, four wine accessories the retailer values at £17.99 and a personalised gift card, packaging a plain bottle would not carry.
Of the £269.97, £2.67 is still-wine duty and about £45.00 is VAT: roughly £47.67 of tax is inside the sticker before the wine itself is priced.
A 1968 Barolo of comparable provenance costs multiples of this; Barbera's humbler market keeps even a Mario Pesce bottling within birthday-gift reach.
Dishes that complement this wine
Barbera's acidity survives where its fruit has faded, so the 1968 still wants the table: braised beef, truffled tajarin, porcini risotto and aged cheeses are the Piedmont matches. Keep chilli heat and delicate raw fish away from a wine this old.
Even at 58 years, acidity is the last thing Barbera surrenders, and it is what cuts through slow-cooked beef and rich pan juices. The dried cherry and caramel register of the 1968 sits beside braised meat the way old Nebbiolo does, without the tannic argument.
Try with: Brasato al Barolo · Ossobuco alla Milanese · beef stew · More pairings →
Nearly six decades of bottle age push a Scarpa-era Barbera into leather, forest floor and balsamic territory, the same aromatic family as white truffle and dried porcini. Piedmont's truffle dishes bridge to those tertiary notes instead of fighting them.
Try with: Tajarin al Tartufo · porcini mushroom risotto · truffle risotto · More pairings →
The retailer's note finds a sweet, caramel-touched palate in this bottle, which mirrors the toffee notes of long-aged hard cheeses, while Barbera's surviving acidity trims their fat. A restrained cheese board keeps the old wine in charge.
Try with: cheese board · strong cheddar cheese · Lancashire cheese · More pairings →
A fully mature Barbera has shed weight and now sits at the light-to-medium end with savoury dried fruit. Roast duck and a soft venison stew match that weight without burying what remains of the 1968's perfume.
Try with: roast duck · duck breast · venison stew · More pairings →
Butter, sage and Parmigiano bring salt and fat but no aggression, and Piedmont's stuffed pastas were built for the region's reds. The salt lifts the dried fruit left in a 1968 Barbera while its acidity rinses the richness.
Try with: Agnolotti del Plin · Risotto alla Milanese · pumpkin risotto · More pairings →
Capsaicin amplifies alcohol and bitterness while flattening exactly the delicate tertiary aromas this bottle has spent decades building. Hot chilli dishes will wipe it out, and very delicate raw fish fares no better against old Barbera's acidity and dried fruit.
Skip with: crispy chilli beef · Szechuan beef · Mongolian beef · Pairing guide →
Pesce, admired by peers from Bruno Giacosa to Angelo Gaja, ran Scarpa from 1949 and created the first single-vineyard Barbera, La Bogliona, from 1975. House Barberas under his own name predate that era and surface rarely; iDealwine has auctioned this same 1968 from private cellars.
Peak around 1975. Best in the years above; holds without falling over either side.
A short splash decant softens the first-pour edge and opens the aromatics.
The authored window peaked around 1975 and closes in 2026; from here every extra year is risk rather than reward, so buy to open.
£269.97 is the lowest tracked offer for the current vintage and we have no signal of further discounting.
Read directly from each retailer’s public product page once a day. Last refresh: 20 Jul 2026, 05:46 BST. We do not hold stock and we do not accept payment for placement.
Confidence · HighA style read drawn from the grape and the appellation, not from this exact bottle. We mark these notes openly so you know what you are reading.
Confidence · MediumFrom the official Italian disciplinare for this denomination, cross-checked against the Ministry of Agriculture register.
Confidence · HighOur reading of the price, drawn from the disciplinare, public UK duty rates, and typical landed-cost benchmarks. Not a quote from the producer or a retailer.
Confidence · MediumStyle guidance for this kind of wine at this price point. Treat it as advice, not a forecast for the bottle in your hand.
Confidence · MediumMario Pesce was the oenologist who ran Antica Casa Vinicola Scarpa in Nizza Monferrato from 1949 and, alongside Braida's Giacomo Bologna, was one of the first two producers to treat Barbera d'Asti as a serious, age-worthy wine. Trained in Burgundy and Alsace, he worked with selective harvests, separate vinifications and long ageing in large oak casks. This 1968 predates his celebrated single-vineyard La Bogliona, first released from the 1975 vintage.
Yes, if you approach it as a fully mature curiosity rather than a fruity red: at 58 years Barbera's cherry has turned to dried fruit and caramel. The retailer's note on this bottle reports a medium pale colour, a sweet, rich palate with a touch of caramel and a long finish. Storage history is unknowable and bottle variation is real, so open it for the occasion rather than cellaring it further.
Stand the bottle upright for a day or two, open gently because a cork this old is fragile, and serve at cool room temperature around 16 to 18C. Decant only to leave sediment behind, just before pouring, and drink it within a few hours of opening. Old Barbera keeps its acidity, so it still sits happily at the table.
No: Barbera d'Asti received its DOC only in 1970, two years after this wine was harvested, and DOCG status followed in 2008. The label predates the modern appellation system, which is part of its period charm. Today's rules require at least 90% Barbera grown on hillside sites in the provinces of Asti and Alessandria.
One UK listing is live at £269.97 through Vintage Wine Gifts, an old-vintage specialist. The bottle ships in a silk-lined wooden presentation box with four wine accessories and a free gift card carrying your own message, so it arrives ready to give for a 1968 birthday or anniversary.
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£17.84
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£25.55
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£11.50
1 retailer
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£69.97
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Prices and stock are read from each retailer’s public product page once a day. Outbound buy links carry rel="nofollow sponsored noopener". The list is sorted by price; we do not accept payment for placement.
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