- Barbera d'Asti and Barbera del Monferrato Superiore are to be designated DOCG from the 2008 vintage. This elevation to Italy's top rank completes the gentrification of Barbera, a grape variety that was regarded as really rather ordinary less than a generation ago. Giacomo Borgogno could be said to have started the process of Barbera elevation when he introduced Bricco dell’Uccellone, although as pointed out in this article on Barbera in your online Oxford Companion points out, Professor Emile Peynaud had suggested ageing Piemonte’s most common grape variety in barriques as long ago as the early 1970s, much to local bemusement. See...