When your name is a legend (Marina’s father Fausto Coppi was the first man ever to win the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in the same year, as well as the Giro d’Italia five times, the Tour of France twice, and the World Championship once all between 1940 and 1953), then you’re going to need your wines to be good. Thankfully, Marina Coppi’s fine wines are as good as her father’s cycling.

Vigne Marini Coppi lies in Castellania, a small village in the Colli Tortonesi region of Piedmont. Fausto, the original owner of the land, sadly died before he could exploit any of it to any commercial usage, thus it fell to his grandson Francesco to turn the 4.5-hectare plot of land into something worth writing about. After studying winemaking in xxx, he (and his wife Anna) founded Vigne Marina Coppi in 2003, honouring both his mother by naming it after her and his grandfather, whose name is on the Timorasso. The Fausto is Marina Coppi’s flagship wine and investors of Italian fine wine will note that whiles prices have remained stable in 2018, we suspect that the market value will increase in 2019-2020. Several critics have begun to get interested in the wine, with Wine Enthusiast giving the 2013 vintage 92 points out of 100.

In order to understand Marina Coppi one needs to be able to understand the Asti wine valley. South of Piedmont, the Barbera grape thrives beautifully here; Italian fine wine collectors should consider Marina Coppi’s Barbera Sant’ Andrea (90% Barbera, 10% Croatina), Barbera Castellania, Barbera Superiore I GROP as superb examples of the fact. The Superiore’s production needs to meet certain minimum requirements including a higher alcohol level (13%) and longer ageing (minimum 14 months including 6 months in barrel). Barbera Superior still represents fantastic value for money at around €25-30 a bottle based on Q2 2019 prices, most notably as it has received more awards than any other wine from the region.