If you want to understand great Nebbiolo without remortgaging the house for a top Barolo, Barbaresco is where smart drinkers start — and Prunotto is one of the names I'd hand a first-timer without a second thought.

Here's the quick version: Barbaresco and Barolo are made from the same grape, in neighboring villages, by many of the same families. Barbaresco tends to be a touch softer and more perfumed, and it comes around a few years earlier. Same pedigree, less waiting, usually less money. If you know your Napa Cab from your Bordeaux, think of it as the more elegant, food-friendly cousin to a structured Left Bank red.

Prunotto has been a benchmark Langhe producer since the 1920s, and since 1989 it's been in the hands of Antinori — one of the oldest wine families in the world, going back to 1385. That matters here because Antinori didn't buy Prunotto to reinvent it; they bought it to keep doing the classic thing properly. This is the estate's flagship Barbaresco, built from fruit in Treiso and Neive, two of the appellation's best villages, then aged about a year in large oak so the wood supports the wine instead of covering it.

The 2023 is a more delicate, perfumed vintage than the bigger years — garnet rather than inky, lifted on the nose, velvety on the palate, with the bright acid line that makes Nebbiolo such a natural at the dinner table. It's drinking beautifully now if you give it an hour in a decanter, and it has the structure to hold for a decade if you'd rather wait.