Thursday, May 20th
As for 2006 in Monforte and Serralunga? Here, clearly, is where the vintage shined. These wines, thanks to their more stripped down nature, showed less fat and more classic Nebbiolo character than anything we’d tried all week. The terroir was more evident and so were the flaws, as they could not be hidden by the layers of sweet fruit we saw in, say, La Morra. Serralunga is a patchwork of small growers who traditionally grew for larger producers and, only in the past twenty years, have made wine for themselves. As a result, quality can be a little irregular. Like in Burgundy, just because you have a great piece of earth under you, doesn’t mean you can fashion it into great wine. Still, I would rate the vintage here a solid *** or even ***+ and, if you stick to really good producers with a track record, you will find some wonderful wines for your cellar in 2006. Here were my favorites from the limited amount tasted- and remember, Clerico, G Conterno, Giacosa and several other high profile producers, did not have wines in the tasting.
***+
2006 Gianfranco Alessandria Barolo San Giovanni- where has this been all my life?
2006 Poderi Aldo Conterno Barolo Colonnelo- find a cold dark place and put this in it.
2006 Azelia Barolo San Rocco- very complex, beautifully made
2006 Seghesio Fratelli Barolo Vigneto La Villa- elegant, nuanced and extremely complex
2004 Massolino Barolo Reserva Vignarionda- a blue chip that really shined.
***
2006 Abbona di Abbona Marziano Barolo Pressenda
2006 Poderi Colla Barolo Dardi Le Rose-Bussia- nice old school stuff
2006 Parusso Armando Barolo Bussia- intense and complex
2006 Elio Grasso Barolo Gavarini Chiniera- speaks well for Clericos 06s as well
2006 Podere Rocche dei Manzoni Barolo Big d’ Big- yes, it is Big, and modern too
2006 Guido Porro Barolo Vigna S. Caterina- a perfect calibration wine for this vintage
2006 Guido Porro Barolo Vigna Lazairasco- cooler and darker
2006 Germano Ettore Barolo Prapo- balanced and softer
2006 Pira Luigi Barolo Marenca- tasted his Rionda later, ‘bout a toss up
2004 Germano Ettore Barolo Riserva Lazzarito
Lunch proved to be revival of sorts for me thanks to the tajarin pasta that helped get me back on an even keel, although I did take it a little easier through the walk-around tasting that followed, tasting mainly the 2000s and a few odd balls, of which there were very few. My earlier caveat about the 2000s was not swayed in this room either as they were, as a group, backwards, tight and briary. Keep them away from your corkscrew for the time being. Some highlights were:
2000 Famiglia Anselma Barolo Riserva Adasi- a lighter, approachable wine now
2003 Germano Ettore Barolo Cerretta- I love the 2003s now. Some are really elegant!
2000 Massolino Barolo Riserva Vigna Rionda 10 Anni- the classic 2000. Everything,
2006 Pira Luigi Barolo Vignarionda- a great bookend to the earlier Margheri
After the tasting Thursday, I drove over to Cordero di Montezemolo, one of the older benchmark producers of La Morra, but one that has been off my radar for many years thanks to some dodgy importation arrangements in California. That has changed with their alignment with good friend Enrico Nicoletta and importer Wine Warehouse. It’s good to get to reacquaint myself with this top producer because clearly, at this quality, and, potentially, some very fair pricing, they figure in my plans at PRIMA.
I met with Alfredo Cordero, the young scion of the ancient Cordero-Falletti family. The Fallettis built Castiglione Falletto across the valley from La Morra some 600 years ago and called their home vineyard on the La Morra slope ‘Monfalletto’, or Mountain of the Fallettis. The Corderos are a branch of the now extinct Fallettis and have been making wine here for a very, very long time. Alberto and his sister are taking over for their father and are responsible for putting this important property back on the map. The key to the Monfalletto site is the Gattera hill, a well-known cru in its own right. Shaped like a ziggurat and topped with its distinctive cypress tree, Gattera is one of the best-known landmarks in all of Barolo and, thanks to its sun-baked exposure, one of its best vineyards. (Careful, when looking down from La Morra to mix Gattera with the Oddero’s little pyramid shaped hilltop with its own, much smaller, tree!) In the best years (and Cordero calls them ‘terroir’ years, so recent vintages have been 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2005- not what you’d expect looking at the Spectator vintage chart) he makes a wine called ‘Goretta’ from vines of the sunniest side of the ziggurat and bottles it only in magnums. Sorry to say, he didn’t open one for me! In addition to the Monfalletto, Gattera and Goretta bottlings, Montezemolo makes a wine they call Enrco VI from the Villero vineyard across the valley in Falletto. This has become their flagship wine, as its quality and ability to age are impressive. Though I forgot to ask, I suspect that in future vintages, it will have to be called Villero Vigna Enrico VI. Cordero also makes a damned serious, very ageable Chardonnay and some very delightful sparkling wine that we already sell at PRIMA.
I was a day late to try the old bottles he had opened in the cantina. The 1958, opened for journalists three days before, was, Cordero said, finally faded in the bottle but a 1990 Chardonnay, served to me blind and having been opened for a few days, was fresh, lively and undeniably one of the great Chardonnay-based wines in Piemonte. The 2007 version shows its lively, really exotic flavors off really well….a wine to watch. It probably won’t unseat Aldo Conterno’s Bussia d’Or as my favorite Piemontese white, but I would certainly buy some if Enrico decides to bring any in. But, knowing Enrico, he’ll say that there is already too damned much Chardonnay in America. Can’t argue that point! As for the Nebbiolo, the 2005 Barolo Monfalletto was cool and sleek while the 2006 was more open and complex with a boatload of tannin. For La Morra in 2006, it’s a pretty dense, intense wine. The 2004 Enrico VI was very dark, brooding stuff, powerful with oak, tannin and spice. It’s quite dry now as it settles into a long, long nap. The 1998 Gattera, on the other hand, is the perfect example of a wine that has shed its youthful impetuousness and is growing into itself. It’s not mature by any stretch, nor is it a baby anymore. This is a serious property.
The rather serious (you could say ‘dour’ if we weren’t talking about someone so young) Alberto turned up later in the evening in bright purple, very shiny shoes at the Nebbiolo Prima Sayonara Party held outdoors under ideal conditions at the Castello Barolo. It was a genial all-star cast on hand to share bottles of their wine, endless passed antipasti, a pasta bar and an awesome 1960s cover band with a lead singer that was a dead ringer for George Harrison circa All Things Must Pass! I was too busy eating, drinking and chatting up winemakers, journalists and my colleagues to make any notes, but there were some great wines proffered by the producers including, among a score of other delectables, a fabulous, if still tight, 2001 Produttori Montestefano Riserva Barbaresco brought by Aldo Vaca. Normally I loathe stand-around-and-mingle parties but one couldn’t help but have fun in this company. I took it easy because of the rocky start I had to the day and the fact that I had operated a motor vehicle to get there, but the grappa I had back at the inn with David Ridge was about as satisfying as any I can remember and when I hit the pillow, I got a full six hours sleep which, for me, is a long, long time!
Friday, May 28, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Day 3, Finally Getting Serious In Barolo
Wednesday, May 19th
Before the tasting this morning there was a presentation highlighting the new official geographic demarcations of the Langhe, specifically Barbaresco (completed and in effect from the 2010 vintage) and Barolo (still wrangling, but expected to be in effect in 2011). Basically, a lot of the sub-vineyards and fanciful proprietary sites will be sublimated and the region’s Burgundy-like cru names will be exclusively used. In other words, a wines like Paolo Scavino’s Bric del Fiasc, a Piemontese affectation of the same vineyard Luigi Scavino at Azelia’ calls Bricco Fiasco, essentially the same sites at the top (Bricco) of the designated cru called Fiasco will now each be called only ‘Fiasco.’ Non-official names for specific plots follow the cru name and get the designation ‘Vigna’ beforehand so, if the Scavinos wants to keep that Bric in there, they can write ‘Scavino/Azelia Barolo Fiasco ‘Vigna Bric’ or something like that. It’s to give greater emphasis to the 166 recognized crus of Barolo and 65 of Barbaresco. Of course this is Italy, so there was no overriding control over the process and each individual commune got to devise its own designations. La Morra and Serralunga identified a slew of named vineyards while Monfotrte created relatively fewer and larger designations. The continuing wrangling in Barolo seems to be on the fate of the famed Cannubi cru, a giant vineyard that everybody seems to have a piece of……stay tuned. The new maps, by the way, are available to see at www.langhevini.it.
By now we have the tasting routine down and my new best friend, the affable Romano, Sommelier-For-Hire and all ‘round good guy, had the pours going into the glasses as soon as we staggered through the door. The theme this day would be Barolo…..Barolo, Barolo, Barolo, all 2006. The line-up highlighted the villages of Grinzane Cavour, La Morra, Verduno and Castiglione Falletto. It turned out to be quite a grab bag with quality in La Morra all over the place. A few were overripe, even prune-y, while others had green streaks a mile long. Unlike classic, terroir-driven vintages like 2001 and 1999, in warmer vintages like 2006 and 2007, the wines can lack definition and verve. Still, there was a lot to love here and having just criticized them, I am also here to sing their praises. The wines are sweet with copious amounts of red currant fruit, a bit of brown herb (that fennel seed again) and broad and persistent tannin. There is ample freshness in most of the wines, but if this is a vintage where you want to taste the dirt in the wine, La Morra probably won’t be your village. Castiglione Falletto was harder to evaluate, as these wines were quite inconsistent, some with the sweetness of La Morra whle others seemed muddled with dry, raspy tannins. Overall, though, I find these to be very good, if not excellent wines in most cases. There are many in the *** category that I will buy myself. Here are the highlights:
***+
2006 Vietti Barolo Brunate- many thought this the wine of the tasting, if not the week
2006 Cordero di Montezemolo Barolo Villero ‘Enrico VI’ iron oxide, red currants, classic!
2004 Mario Gagliasso Barolo Riserva- like cinnamon crisp cereal, exotic and sweet
2004 Cavallotto Barolo Riserva Bricco Boschis Vignolo- just ravishing!
***
2006 Ciabot Berton Barolo Ciabot Berton La Morra- a benchmark for La Morra
2006 Rocche Costamagna Barolo Rocche dell’Annunziata Bricco Franchesco- very promising- the wines from Annunziata did very well as a group.
2006 Mauro Molino Barolo Vigna Gancia- the best I’ve ever tasted from this producer
2006 Eraldo Viberti Barolo Rochetteviino, La Morra- ripe but balanced
2006 Mario Gagliasso Barolo, Rocche dell’Annunziata- I need to search this guy out
2006 Cordero di Montezemolo Barolo Bricco Gattera- knock out!
2006 Gianni Voerzio Barolo La Serra- controversial, too modern but a nice drink
2006 Marengo Mario Barolo Brunate- plump, easy to love
2006 Marcarini Barolo Brunate- yes, I gave it three but be wary of this wine and the La Serra too…they are atypical of the stuff normally produced here. ?
2006 Enzo Boglietti Barolo Case Nere- new to me, classic…my favorite La Morra
2006 Burlotto Barolo Acclivi Verduno- this winery makes the best wine in Verduno.
2006 Alessandria Fratelli Barolo Monvigliero- pretty. La Morra like charm
2006 Cavalotto Barolo Bricco Boschis- huge! Too huge?
2006 Oddero Barolo Rocche di Castiglione, Falletto- another classic wine
2006 Baroli Barolo Villero- a classic from a classic vintage, may be lacking sex appeal?
2006 Oddero Barolo Villero- even better than the Rocche! The Odderos are on a tear!
2004 Ciabot Breton Barolo Riserva- a beauty
2004 Enzo Boglietti Barolo Riserva- exotic fruit, bold tannins
2004 Cascina Ballarin Barolo Riserva Bricco Rocca Riserva Tistot – new to me
2004 Cavallotto Barolo Riserva Bricco Boschis- San Giuseppe- a black hole!
It is at this point that I remind you that there were some wines notable for not participating in this event. Not tasted were favorites from the two Corinos, Fratelli Revello and several others. That’s the only reason I can think of for their not being on the list! ;-)
The disappointments: Renato Ratti made a murky, funky Barolo Marcenasco in 2006. And no matter what the press says about Silvio Grasso, I just don’t get the wines. I scored Grasso’s Ciabot Manzoni a *, in other words, thanks for showing up, now go away. Andrea Oberto, another typically reliable producer, made a hard, woody wine that was really unpleasant to drink.
Some random alcohol fueled thoughts at the end of the tasting:
They say the more you know, the less you know and that seems to definitely be the case here. Few people, save my dozen or so colleagues, can say they’ve tasted more 2006 and 2007 Nebbioli than I will this week. By the time I am finished this week, it will number over 450 wines. For a while it seemed it would be easy to make broad generalizations like, say, the press seems so willing to do- already baptizing 2006 as the next great vintage of the century and 2007 as the next still. The truth is that there are good and bad wines made every vintage and these two are no different. What a tasting of this magnitude has enabled me to do is not only calibrate what the common points are, not only in the broader sense, but also within each of the villages and crus. And, as I tasted along, I could identify certain wines as benchmarks (i.e. showing off all of the attributes and or failings I’ve identified) and plot them on an imaginary graph with points landing either above or below my imagined standards. Those meeting or exceeding those benchmarks get the coveted Rittmaster ***! Still, as I say, for all I now know, I don’t know enough and the proof will come when these wines have weathered their trip across the Atlantic and have had enough bottle age to show their true characters.
With the wines of Monforte and Serralunga still to come, here’s how I would rate these vintages overall, as if such a thing could possibly mean anything.
2007 Roero **+ -sweet, ripe, but all over the place
2006 Roero Riserva ***(-)
2007 Barbaresco ***(-) easy to love but are they too sweet and, ultimately, too simple?
2006 Barolo *** for the vintage
2006 La Morra **+ lots of sweet fruit, some lacking freshness
2006 Castiglione Falletto ***? Jury is still out. Think it’s good. I know Villero was!
2004 Barolo Riserva ***(+) This is a mythical blend of 1998 and 2001!
Added later:
Serralunga *** - no question that this is the sweet spot of the vintage- good structure but not too austere.
Monforte d’Alba *** Same here…..lots of good wines.
After another nice lunch on the castle patio at the Barolo castle, it was time for the day’s second tasting featuring many 2000 vintage wines among others. Some of the highlights for me follow:
2000 Alessandria Fratelli Barolo Monvigliero- very pretty! One of the better showing 2000s.
2009 Alessandria Fratelli Pelaverga….no, Pelaverga is not going to be the Next Big Thing but this fruity, light stuff is sure fun to drink! It’s aVerduno thing.
2000 Enzo Boglietti Barolo Brunate….no, I’ve not seen much of Boglietti in the US, but the wines are sure nice. The 2000 Brunate is very good.
2000 Baroli Barolo Villero from a double magnum….another very good showing 2000, from a big bottle no less. The 1998 from the same cru is showing very well as well. I like 1998.
2000 Ciabot Breton Barolo Ciabot Breton….this Barolo producer doesn’t make big, ‘noble’ wines but they are solid and keep turning up near the top of every tasting in which they appear.
2000 Rocche Costamagna Barolo Bricco Francesco- another winery I don’t know, but with good vines in Rocche dell’Annunziata (a particular strength in La Morra in 2006), the are a property to watch. The 2000 has some real finesse, like a top Burgundy.
The dinner Wednesday was one of the highlights of the trip as it was put on by the Langa In, a group of 19 quality-minded producers in loose association. The names and personalities involved are impressive. Here are 17 of the 19 producers, the ones whose wines I actually tasted at dinner. (Can you believe I am such a wimp that I was only able to have 17 glasses of wine at dinner? Am I losing my touch?
Azelia-Luigi Scavino
Pierro Gatti
Paolo Scavino
Viberti
Domenico Clerico
Andrea Oberto
Conterno-Fantino
Elio Grasso
Pelissero
Parusso
Deltetto
Giovanni Almondo
Pira-Chiara Boschis
La Selvatilo
Malvira
La Caudrina
Matteo Correggia
The dinner was at Malvira’s beautiful Villa Tiboldi estate in Canale. The spot is simply gorgeous and the meal, with the exception of tough Tagliata of Veal, impressive. The Ravioli Bianchi (white Ravioli) filled with braised hen and topped with an egg yolk sauce was one of the best dishes I’ve ever had in Piemonte if not the best damned Ravioli I ever ate. This lively group was stimulating and fun. I sat next to Giorgio Pelissero from Barbaresco and Claudio Conterno, half of the Conterno-Fantino duo, and across from old friend Chiara Boschis, who makes her E. Pira wines as well as having just sold her stake in Borgogno. Their wines were sensational. Highlights included my first taste of Almondo’s 2009 Bricco Cilegiolo Arneis, my favorite in the category for several vintages, the intense, profound 2005 Clerico Barolo Pajana, the deep but still very young 2004 Scavino Rocche dell’Annunziata Riserva, the elegant 2000 Chiara Boschis Cannubi from magnum and three different ice-cold Moscati d’Asti!
My big mistake?
Washing it all down with my second espresso of the day. I rarely drink coffee and I don’t think I’ve ever had two in one day like I did Wednesday. I suffer from insomnia so I know sleeplessness, but I simply wasn’t prepared for a caffeine-jet lag fueled night where I slept not one wink. Finally, with the sun streaming through the windows, I staggered downstairs to the breakfast room and let a few colleagues know I wasn’t going to be on the bus this morning! I slept for three hours, took a shower and drove myself over the Barolo to pick up the pieces. I worked through an abbreviated version of the 76 wines lined up in the Ampelion, the staggeringly good Baroli from Monforte d’Alba and Serralunga, and formally began my day at lunch up in the castle.
Stay tuned!
Before the tasting this morning there was a presentation highlighting the new official geographic demarcations of the Langhe, specifically Barbaresco (completed and in effect from the 2010 vintage) and Barolo (still wrangling, but expected to be in effect in 2011). Basically, a lot of the sub-vineyards and fanciful proprietary sites will be sublimated and the region’s Burgundy-like cru names will be exclusively used. In other words, a wines like Paolo Scavino’s Bric del Fiasc, a Piemontese affectation of the same vineyard Luigi Scavino at Azelia’ calls Bricco Fiasco, essentially the same sites at the top (Bricco) of the designated cru called Fiasco will now each be called only ‘Fiasco.’ Non-official names for specific plots follow the cru name and get the designation ‘Vigna’ beforehand so, if the Scavinos wants to keep that Bric in there, they can write ‘Scavino/Azelia Barolo Fiasco ‘Vigna Bric’ or something like that. It’s to give greater emphasis to the 166 recognized crus of Barolo and 65 of Barbaresco. Of course this is Italy, so there was no overriding control over the process and each individual commune got to devise its own designations. La Morra and Serralunga identified a slew of named vineyards while Monfotrte created relatively fewer and larger designations. The continuing wrangling in Barolo seems to be on the fate of the famed Cannubi cru, a giant vineyard that everybody seems to have a piece of……stay tuned. The new maps, by the way, are available to see at www.langhevini.it.
By now we have the tasting routine down and my new best friend, the affable Romano, Sommelier-For-Hire and all ‘round good guy, had the pours going into the glasses as soon as we staggered through the door. The theme this day would be Barolo…..Barolo, Barolo, Barolo, all 2006. The line-up highlighted the villages of Grinzane Cavour, La Morra, Verduno and Castiglione Falletto. It turned out to be quite a grab bag with quality in La Morra all over the place. A few were overripe, even prune-y, while others had green streaks a mile long. Unlike classic, terroir-driven vintages like 2001 and 1999, in warmer vintages like 2006 and 2007, the wines can lack definition and verve. Still, there was a lot to love here and having just criticized them, I am also here to sing their praises. The wines are sweet with copious amounts of red currant fruit, a bit of brown herb (that fennel seed again) and broad and persistent tannin. There is ample freshness in most of the wines, but if this is a vintage where you want to taste the dirt in the wine, La Morra probably won’t be your village. Castiglione Falletto was harder to evaluate, as these wines were quite inconsistent, some with the sweetness of La Morra whle others seemed muddled with dry, raspy tannins. Overall, though, I find these to be very good, if not excellent wines in most cases. There are many in the *** category that I will buy myself. Here are the highlights:
***+
2006 Vietti Barolo Brunate- many thought this the wine of the tasting, if not the week
2006 Cordero di Montezemolo Barolo Villero ‘Enrico VI’ iron oxide, red currants, classic!
2004 Mario Gagliasso Barolo Riserva- like cinnamon crisp cereal, exotic and sweet
2004 Cavallotto Barolo Riserva Bricco Boschis Vignolo- just ravishing!
***
2006 Ciabot Berton Barolo Ciabot Berton La Morra- a benchmark for La Morra
2006 Rocche Costamagna Barolo Rocche dell’Annunziata Bricco Franchesco- very promising- the wines from Annunziata did very well as a group.
2006 Mauro Molino Barolo Vigna Gancia- the best I’ve ever tasted from this producer
2006 Eraldo Viberti Barolo Rochetteviino, La Morra- ripe but balanced
2006 Mario Gagliasso Barolo, Rocche dell’Annunziata- I need to search this guy out
2006 Cordero di Montezemolo Barolo Bricco Gattera- knock out!
2006 Gianni Voerzio Barolo La Serra- controversial, too modern but a nice drink
2006 Marengo Mario Barolo Brunate- plump, easy to love
2006 Marcarini Barolo Brunate- yes, I gave it three but be wary of this wine and the La Serra too…they are atypical of the stuff normally produced here. ?
2006 Enzo Boglietti Barolo Case Nere- new to me, classic…my favorite La Morra
2006 Burlotto Barolo Acclivi Verduno- this winery makes the best wine in Verduno.
2006 Alessandria Fratelli Barolo Monvigliero- pretty. La Morra like charm
2006 Cavalotto Barolo Bricco Boschis- huge! Too huge?
2006 Oddero Barolo Rocche di Castiglione, Falletto- another classic wine
2006 Baroli Barolo Villero- a classic from a classic vintage, may be lacking sex appeal?
2006 Oddero Barolo Villero- even better than the Rocche! The Odderos are on a tear!
2004 Ciabot Breton Barolo Riserva- a beauty
2004 Enzo Boglietti Barolo Riserva- exotic fruit, bold tannins
2004 Cascina Ballarin Barolo Riserva Bricco Rocca Riserva Tistot – new to me
2004 Cavallotto Barolo Riserva Bricco Boschis- San Giuseppe- a black hole!
It is at this point that I remind you that there were some wines notable for not participating in this event. Not tasted were favorites from the two Corinos, Fratelli Revello and several others. That’s the only reason I can think of for their not being on the list! ;-)
The disappointments: Renato Ratti made a murky, funky Barolo Marcenasco in 2006. And no matter what the press says about Silvio Grasso, I just don’t get the wines. I scored Grasso’s Ciabot Manzoni a *, in other words, thanks for showing up, now go away. Andrea Oberto, another typically reliable producer, made a hard, woody wine that was really unpleasant to drink.
Some random alcohol fueled thoughts at the end of the tasting:
They say the more you know, the less you know and that seems to definitely be the case here. Few people, save my dozen or so colleagues, can say they’ve tasted more 2006 and 2007 Nebbioli than I will this week. By the time I am finished this week, it will number over 450 wines. For a while it seemed it would be easy to make broad generalizations like, say, the press seems so willing to do- already baptizing 2006 as the next great vintage of the century and 2007 as the next still. The truth is that there are good and bad wines made every vintage and these two are no different. What a tasting of this magnitude has enabled me to do is not only calibrate what the common points are, not only in the broader sense, but also within each of the villages and crus. And, as I tasted along, I could identify certain wines as benchmarks (i.e. showing off all of the attributes and or failings I’ve identified) and plot them on an imaginary graph with points landing either above or below my imagined standards. Those meeting or exceeding those benchmarks get the coveted Rittmaster ***! Still, as I say, for all I now know, I don’t know enough and the proof will come when these wines have weathered their trip across the Atlantic and have had enough bottle age to show their true characters.
With the wines of Monforte and Serralunga still to come, here’s how I would rate these vintages overall, as if such a thing could possibly mean anything.
2007 Roero **+ -sweet, ripe, but all over the place
2006 Roero Riserva ***(-)
2007 Barbaresco ***(-) easy to love but are they too sweet and, ultimately, too simple?
2006 Barolo *** for the vintage
2006 La Morra **+ lots of sweet fruit, some lacking freshness
2006 Castiglione Falletto ***? Jury is still out. Think it’s good. I know Villero was!
2004 Barolo Riserva ***(+) This is a mythical blend of 1998 and 2001!
Added later:
Serralunga *** - no question that this is the sweet spot of the vintage- good structure but not too austere.
Monforte d’Alba *** Same here…..lots of good wines.
After another nice lunch on the castle patio at the Barolo castle, it was time for the day’s second tasting featuring many 2000 vintage wines among others. Some of the highlights for me follow:
2000 Alessandria Fratelli Barolo Monvigliero- very pretty! One of the better showing 2000s.
2009 Alessandria Fratelli Pelaverga….no, Pelaverga is not going to be the Next Big Thing but this fruity, light stuff is sure fun to drink! It’s aVerduno thing.
2000 Enzo Boglietti Barolo Brunate….no, I’ve not seen much of Boglietti in the US, but the wines are sure nice. The 2000 Brunate is very good.
2000 Baroli Barolo Villero from a double magnum….another very good showing 2000, from a big bottle no less. The 1998 from the same cru is showing very well as well. I like 1998.
2000 Ciabot Breton Barolo Ciabot Breton….this Barolo producer doesn’t make big, ‘noble’ wines but they are solid and keep turning up near the top of every tasting in which they appear.
2000 Rocche Costamagna Barolo Bricco Francesco- another winery I don’t know, but with good vines in Rocche dell’Annunziata (a particular strength in La Morra in 2006), the are a property to watch. The 2000 has some real finesse, like a top Burgundy.
The dinner Wednesday was one of the highlights of the trip as it was put on by the Langa In, a group of 19 quality-minded producers in loose association. The names and personalities involved are impressive. Here are 17 of the 19 producers, the ones whose wines I actually tasted at dinner. (Can you believe I am such a wimp that I was only able to have 17 glasses of wine at dinner? Am I losing my touch?
Azelia-Luigi Scavino
Pierro Gatti
Paolo Scavino
Viberti
Domenico Clerico
Andrea Oberto
Conterno-Fantino
Elio Grasso
Pelissero
Parusso
Deltetto
Giovanni Almondo
Pira-Chiara Boschis
La Selvatilo
Malvira
La Caudrina
Matteo Correggia
The dinner was at Malvira’s beautiful Villa Tiboldi estate in Canale. The spot is simply gorgeous and the meal, with the exception of tough Tagliata of Veal, impressive. The Ravioli Bianchi (white Ravioli) filled with braised hen and topped with an egg yolk sauce was one of the best dishes I’ve ever had in Piemonte if not the best damned Ravioli I ever ate. This lively group was stimulating and fun. I sat next to Giorgio Pelissero from Barbaresco and Claudio Conterno, half of the Conterno-Fantino duo, and across from old friend Chiara Boschis, who makes her E. Pira wines as well as having just sold her stake in Borgogno. Their wines were sensational. Highlights included my first taste of Almondo’s 2009 Bricco Cilegiolo Arneis, my favorite in the category for several vintages, the intense, profound 2005 Clerico Barolo Pajana, the deep but still very young 2004 Scavino Rocche dell’Annunziata Riserva, the elegant 2000 Chiara Boschis Cannubi from magnum and three different ice-cold Moscati d’Asti!
My big mistake?
Washing it all down with my second espresso of the day. I rarely drink coffee and I don’t think I’ve ever had two in one day like I did Wednesday. I suffer from insomnia so I know sleeplessness, but I simply wasn’t prepared for a caffeine-jet lag fueled night where I slept not one wink. Finally, with the sun streaming through the windows, I staggered downstairs to the breakfast room and let a few colleagues know I wasn’t going to be on the bus this morning! I slept for three hours, took a shower and drove myself over the Barolo to pick up the pieces. I worked through an abbreviated version of the 76 wines lined up in the Ampelion, the staggeringly good Baroli from Monforte d’Alba and Serralunga, and formally began my day at lunch up in the castle.
Stay tuned!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Breakfast of Champions, Day 2: Death by Nebbiolo
Tuesday, May 18th
Made a note to eat more breakfast this morning. After the pummelling I took yesterday at the hands of all that Nebbiolo, I had to muster all of the ballast I could in order to successfully do battle with an extra early start, and what turned out to be another 85 wines at the Ampelion at 10:00 AM.
The morning started with an excellent lecture on the characteristics of Nebbiolo by Dr. Anna Schneider at the Palazzo Mostre e Congressi in Alba. In the did-you-know category are the facts that the earliest mention of Nebbiolo in Barolo goes back to 1266, though there was no appellation of Barolo as such until the Priest of Barolo made it so in 1869. Nebbiolo is, of course, native to Piemonte with Valle d’Aosta claiming some 26 and Valtellina, in Lombardia some 900 of the roughly 6000 hectares planted. Sardegna’s 26 hectares, a legacy of the Savoys, alas, is not Nebbiolo at all, Schneider claims. It’s Dolcetto! Take that Sardegna.
Another interesting fact is that of the three major clones we know, Rose, Lampia and Michet, only the latter two are suitable for creating newer selections as Rose makes just that, pink, not red, Nebbiolo. But Michet, while an excellent clone, is ravaged by fan leaf virus that both lowers yields (yay!) but also brix (uh, oh). In the seventies and eighties, selections were chosen for their ability to produce high yields but, since 1980, quality has become the foremost criterion.
Tasting Two at the Ampelion.
Some words about the 2007 Barbareschi from Neive: most of the wines all fell within a fairly narrow bandwidth of flavors and ranged from super ripe, almost gooey, to only slightly less so. My favorites have a feminine spice to them. The biggest turn quite tannic, but I didn’t mark that down if they had enough freshness and verve to counter. Many didn’t. Here were my Neive favorites:
***
2007 Rivetti Massimo Barbaresco Froii-chocolate, cinnamon powder
2007 Angelo Negro et al Barbaresco Cascinotta- darker personality
2007 Montiribaldi Barbaresco Palazzina- classic in style- almost got the +
2007 Cascina Saria Barbaresco- new to me but very good
2007 Antichi Podere dei Gallina Barbaresco Vigneto L Ciaciaret- big boy!
2007 Sottimano Barbaresco Cotta- archetype of a success for this vintage
2007 Punset Barbaresco Basarin- some burned wood but excellent quality
2007 Antica Casa Vinicola Scarpa Barbaresco Tettineive- who is this?
2005 Dante Rivetti Barbaresco Riserva Bricco- gonna like these Riservae!
2005 Rivetti Massimo Barbaresco Riserva Serraboella- top notch.
2006 Barolo Vintage
Always nice to warm up with 40+ Barbareschi to prepare for the main event! The 2006 vintage in the Barolo zone was considered a more classically styled one with the volume controls one louder….a lot like 2004, some say. My take on it is that it is like 1998 but les consistent. I identified a consistent nose of raspberry (more pronounced in La Morra as I later found, and less obvious in the more structured wines of Monforte and Serralunga). The fruit is complicated to one degree or another by hints of hot ‘scorched’ earth, something ‘seedy’ like fennel seed- definitely in the brown herb category- and beefy, mouthfilling tannins. I wrote chocolate-mint for more than a few and those often, it seemed to me, had slightly (or not so slightly in more than one case) elevated alcohols. The best were nicely balanced, juicy and restrained. This first set of wines were all from Barolo and Novello. The controversy amongst the tasters surrounded the famed Cannubi vineyard, which more than one critic in the room called ‘ alcoholic and insipid.’ I wasn’t ready to go that far but there were several disappointments from that vaunted site.
As I go through these notes now, I see that I was not very generous with my ratings but I have to say that the vintage is really good- maybe not top to bottom- but very good indeed. 2006 definitely has a prime spot in the Barolo winning streak that now extends from 1995. Here we go:
***+
2006 Burlotto Barolo Vigneto Cannubi- super stylish and elegant
***
2006 Le Ginestre Barolo, Sottocastello, Novello – a benchmark setter
2006 Elvio Cogno Barolo Ravera- woody but otherwise complete
2006 Poderi Einaudi Barolo Coste Grimaldi- top notch
2006 Giacomo Grimaldi Barolo Le Coste- why am I not surprised! This always rocks.
2006 Luciano Sandrone Barolo Cannubi Boschis- quite controversial- the Le Vigne was a disappointment and this was better, although not a mind blower. Distinct animal character in both. Something’s up at this vaunted address.
2006 Gianni Gagliardo Barolo Cannubi- rustic but in a nice way
2006 Poderi Einaudi Barolo Nei Cannubi- nearly got the extra +
2006 Damilano Barolo Cannubi- dramatic, lavishly oaked, why not?
2006 Pira Chiara Boschis Barolo Cannubi- elegant and balanced
2006 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Cannubi San Lorenzo-Ravera- as advertised
2006 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Brunate-Le Coste- indeed, this is spectacular
2006 GD Vajra Barolo Bricco Viole- mineral, Burgundy-like
2006 Baroli Barolo Cerequio- under the radar producer
2004 Virna- Borgogno Barolo Riserva Preda Sarmassa
2004 Borgogno Giacomo Barolo Riserva- elegant, pretty even
2004 Borgogno Giacomo Barolo Riserva Liste- the classic Neb, light but spicy
A very well earned buffet lunch (what’s up with Salad Russe? Who was the knucklehead who first brought mayonnaise to Piemonte?) was had at the courtyard of Barolo castle. But the respite was short lived as the castle dungeon was loaded with evil-minded men and women just waiting to force more Nebbiolo down our throats.
Same format as yesterday with the accent on the 2000 vintage. So here’s what I say about that! The 2000s from blue chip producers like Borgogno, Mascarello, Rinaldi,Cogno and others reveal that, unlike the Barbareschi and Roero wines above, this is not a vintage that will be integrated and perfect ready anytime soon, if ever. Of all the 2000s tasted, it was only Giacomo Brezza’s lovely Sarmassa that showed any degree of the complex marzipan-balsamico I was expecting, and even that wine had a ton of palpable tannin. The wines however did show the hallmarks of each respective property’s personalities though; Mascarello’s elegance, Rinaldi’s punch, the mineral-iodine-spice of Borgogno but the best fruit is still submerged in a sea of tannin and whether or not something more interesting emerges with time, we’ll need to wait and see. The fate that befell the 2000 Roeros is not, however, encouraging. Most of those have passed their prime and are lean and tannic shells of their former selves. Of course, as I mentioned before, 2000 was ten years ago and most of the current winemakers in Roero were still in the early stages of their careers and this was during the prime of the ‘modern’ movement where overoaking and extracting Nebbiolo was the norm. Only a few in Roero handled the challenge of this so-called ‘perfect’ vintage with grace. One would think that the wines made by veteran winemakers working in Barolo’s most established, vaunted terroirs would fare better. I know they did, but to what extent, the jury is still definitely out. In the meantime, keep those ‘perfect’ 2000 Baroli in your cellar under lock and key!
Dinner turned out to be an interesting affair. Meant to highlight the producers of Roero, it was held at the Castello Magliano Alfieri Ristorante Stefano Paganini alla Corte degli Alfieri……sounds like a mouthful and it was. And damned hard to find too. I have to mention, first of all, that I thought it wise to eschew the bus and drive out there with Aussie David directly from a brief rest at the hotel. Let’s the put it this way, the drive home, once I knew the way, was 35 minutes, the drive out, considerably longer! Our unplanned detour, however, took us through most of the best vineyards of Barbaresco and Neive at sunset, so who really cared that we were lost. It was simply too gorgeous to get too tense about it. Piano, piano! We finally turned up at the castello about an hour or so late, just in time, in fact to sit down to dinner having missed the tasting, Hurray for us! Less Nebbiolo to digest. Anyway, as bad as we felt for being late, two other parties turned up even later, one twenty five minutes after us and another a full hour. Having said earlier what a breeze it was to navigate in Italy, you should never believe what I say.
The meal was a curious affair with some interesting wines including Marco Porello Arneis magnums, my introduction to the Negro boys, Fratelli Angelo (two brothers), Lorenzo Negro and the unrelated Negros that make Pace (Pa-che). Of the three, Angelo (literally Negro Angelo e figli di Giovanni Negro) is making the best wines, well-done, sleek versions of Roero that bare searching for. The owner of Deltetto was also there so I had a chance to see Prima favorite Deltetto S. Michele Arneis against a passel of others. It fared beautifully. Amongst the others, my good friend Mario Roagna’s Cascina Val de Prete wines and the 2001 Monchiero Carbone Prunti Roero were the class of the evening. By the way, Stefano Paganini is reputed to be one of the best chefs in the area but I am not sure, based on this meal, that I would make this trip again. I know our good friend Chef Elide at Centro in nearby Prioca is the place to visit should your plans take you towards Canale in Roero. And, as we shall see tomorrow, Villa Teobaldi’s Ravioli Bianchi alone makes that a worthwhile stop.
Thanks to the straight shot home, in bed by midnight again, a survivor of Day Two.
Made a note to eat more breakfast this morning. After the pummelling I took yesterday at the hands of all that Nebbiolo, I had to muster all of the ballast I could in order to successfully do battle with an extra early start, and what turned out to be another 85 wines at the Ampelion at 10:00 AM.
The morning started with an excellent lecture on the characteristics of Nebbiolo by Dr. Anna Schneider at the Palazzo Mostre e Congressi in Alba. In the did-you-know category are the facts that the earliest mention of Nebbiolo in Barolo goes back to 1266, though there was no appellation of Barolo as such until the Priest of Barolo made it so in 1869. Nebbiolo is, of course, native to Piemonte with Valle d’Aosta claiming some 26 and Valtellina, in Lombardia some 900 of the roughly 6000 hectares planted. Sardegna’s 26 hectares, a legacy of the Savoys, alas, is not Nebbiolo at all, Schneider claims. It’s Dolcetto! Take that Sardegna.
Another interesting fact is that of the three major clones we know, Rose, Lampia and Michet, only the latter two are suitable for creating newer selections as Rose makes just that, pink, not red, Nebbiolo. But Michet, while an excellent clone, is ravaged by fan leaf virus that both lowers yields (yay!) but also brix (uh, oh). In the seventies and eighties, selections were chosen for their ability to produce high yields but, since 1980, quality has become the foremost criterion.
Tasting Two at the Ampelion.
Some words about the 2007 Barbareschi from Neive: most of the wines all fell within a fairly narrow bandwidth of flavors and ranged from super ripe, almost gooey, to only slightly less so. My favorites have a feminine spice to them. The biggest turn quite tannic, but I didn’t mark that down if they had enough freshness and verve to counter. Many didn’t. Here were my Neive favorites:
***
2007 Rivetti Massimo Barbaresco Froii-chocolate, cinnamon powder
2007 Angelo Negro et al Barbaresco Cascinotta- darker personality
2007 Montiribaldi Barbaresco Palazzina- classic in style- almost got the +
2007 Cascina Saria Barbaresco- new to me but very good
2007 Antichi Podere dei Gallina Barbaresco Vigneto L Ciaciaret- big boy!
2007 Sottimano Barbaresco Cotta- archetype of a success for this vintage
2007 Punset Barbaresco Basarin- some burned wood but excellent quality
2007 Antica Casa Vinicola Scarpa Barbaresco Tettineive- who is this?
2005 Dante Rivetti Barbaresco Riserva Bricco- gonna like these Riservae!
2005 Rivetti Massimo Barbaresco Riserva Serraboella- top notch.
2006 Barolo Vintage
Always nice to warm up with 40+ Barbareschi to prepare for the main event! The 2006 vintage in the Barolo zone was considered a more classically styled one with the volume controls one louder….a lot like 2004, some say. My take on it is that it is like 1998 but les consistent. I identified a consistent nose of raspberry (more pronounced in La Morra as I later found, and less obvious in the more structured wines of Monforte and Serralunga). The fruit is complicated to one degree or another by hints of hot ‘scorched’ earth, something ‘seedy’ like fennel seed- definitely in the brown herb category- and beefy, mouthfilling tannins. I wrote chocolate-mint for more than a few and those often, it seemed to me, had slightly (or not so slightly in more than one case) elevated alcohols. The best were nicely balanced, juicy and restrained. This first set of wines were all from Barolo and Novello. The controversy amongst the tasters surrounded the famed Cannubi vineyard, which more than one critic in the room called ‘ alcoholic and insipid.’ I wasn’t ready to go that far but there were several disappointments from that vaunted site.
As I go through these notes now, I see that I was not very generous with my ratings but I have to say that the vintage is really good- maybe not top to bottom- but very good indeed. 2006 definitely has a prime spot in the Barolo winning streak that now extends from 1995. Here we go:
***+
2006 Burlotto Barolo Vigneto Cannubi- super stylish and elegant
***
2006 Le Ginestre Barolo, Sottocastello, Novello – a benchmark setter
2006 Elvio Cogno Barolo Ravera- woody but otherwise complete
2006 Poderi Einaudi Barolo Coste Grimaldi- top notch
2006 Giacomo Grimaldi Barolo Le Coste- why am I not surprised! This always rocks.
2006 Luciano Sandrone Barolo Cannubi Boschis- quite controversial- the Le Vigne was a disappointment and this was better, although not a mind blower. Distinct animal character in both. Something’s up at this vaunted address.
2006 Gianni Gagliardo Barolo Cannubi- rustic but in a nice way
2006 Poderi Einaudi Barolo Nei Cannubi- nearly got the extra +
2006 Damilano Barolo Cannubi- dramatic, lavishly oaked, why not?
2006 Pira Chiara Boschis Barolo Cannubi- elegant and balanced
2006 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Cannubi San Lorenzo-Ravera- as advertised
2006 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Brunate-Le Coste- indeed, this is spectacular
2006 GD Vajra Barolo Bricco Viole- mineral, Burgundy-like
2006 Baroli Barolo Cerequio- under the radar producer
2004 Virna- Borgogno Barolo Riserva Preda Sarmassa
2004 Borgogno Giacomo Barolo Riserva- elegant, pretty even
2004 Borgogno Giacomo Barolo Riserva Liste- the classic Neb, light but spicy
A very well earned buffet lunch (what’s up with Salad Russe? Who was the knucklehead who first brought mayonnaise to Piemonte?) was had at the courtyard of Barolo castle. But the respite was short lived as the castle dungeon was loaded with evil-minded men and women just waiting to force more Nebbiolo down our throats.
Same format as yesterday with the accent on the 2000 vintage. So here’s what I say about that! The 2000s from blue chip producers like Borgogno, Mascarello, Rinaldi,Cogno and others reveal that, unlike the Barbareschi and Roero wines above, this is not a vintage that will be integrated and perfect ready anytime soon, if ever. Of all the 2000s tasted, it was only Giacomo Brezza’s lovely Sarmassa that showed any degree of the complex marzipan-balsamico I was expecting, and even that wine had a ton of palpable tannin. The wines however did show the hallmarks of each respective property’s personalities though; Mascarello’s elegance, Rinaldi’s punch, the mineral-iodine-spice of Borgogno but the best fruit is still submerged in a sea of tannin and whether or not something more interesting emerges with time, we’ll need to wait and see. The fate that befell the 2000 Roeros is not, however, encouraging. Most of those have passed their prime and are lean and tannic shells of their former selves. Of course, as I mentioned before, 2000 was ten years ago and most of the current winemakers in Roero were still in the early stages of their careers and this was during the prime of the ‘modern’ movement where overoaking and extracting Nebbiolo was the norm. Only a few in Roero handled the challenge of this so-called ‘perfect’ vintage with grace. One would think that the wines made by veteran winemakers working in Barolo’s most established, vaunted terroirs would fare better. I know they did, but to what extent, the jury is still definitely out. In the meantime, keep those ‘perfect’ 2000 Baroli in your cellar under lock and key!
Dinner turned out to be an interesting affair. Meant to highlight the producers of Roero, it was held at the Castello Magliano Alfieri Ristorante Stefano Paganini alla Corte degli Alfieri……sounds like a mouthful and it was. And damned hard to find too. I have to mention, first of all, that I thought it wise to eschew the bus and drive out there with Aussie David directly from a brief rest at the hotel. Let’s the put it this way, the drive home, once I knew the way, was 35 minutes, the drive out, considerably longer! Our unplanned detour, however, took us through most of the best vineyards of Barbaresco and Neive at sunset, so who really cared that we were lost. It was simply too gorgeous to get too tense about it. Piano, piano! We finally turned up at the castello about an hour or so late, just in time, in fact to sit down to dinner having missed the tasting, Hurray for us! Less Nebbiolo to digest. Anyway, as bad as we felt for being late, two other parties turned up even later, one twenty five minutes after us and another a full hour. Having said earlier what a breeze it was to navigate in Italy, you should never believe what I say.
The meal was a curious affair with some interesting wines including Marco Porello Arneis magnums, my introduction to the Negro boys, Fratelli Angelo (two brothers), Lorenzo Negro and the unrelated Negros that make Pace (Pa-che). Of the three, Angelo (literally Negro Angelo e figli di Giovanni Negro) is making the best wines, well-done, sleek versions of Roero that bare searching for. The owner of Deltetto was also there so I had a chance to see Prima favorite Deltetto S. Michele Arneis against a passel of others. It fared beautifully. Amongst the others, my good friend Mario Roagna’s Cascina Val de Prete wines and the 2001 Monchiero Carbone Prunti Roero were the class of the evening. By the way, Stefano Paganini is reputed to be one of the best chefs in the area but I am not sure, based on this meal, that I would make this trip again. I know our good friend Chef Elide at Centro in nearby Prioca is the place to visit should your plans take you towards Canale in Roero. And, as we shall see tomorrow, Villa Teobaldi’s Ravioli Bianchi alone makes that a worthwhile stop.
Thanks to the straight shot home, in bed by midnight again, a survivor of Day Two.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Breakfast of Champions, Day I
Breakfast of Champions
Following are my notes from my recent week-long trip to Italy completed yesterday. It's only Day One. There are six more to go!
Piemonte, May 15-22
Sunday Evening, May 16th
At the risk of violating the copyright for Wheaties (or Kurt Vonnegut’s for that matter), I defy anyone to surpass wines made from the Nebbiolo grape as a preferred way to break fast. In fact, our small group consumed some 350 different versions over four days of tasting, all before lunch! The other 200 or so wines were consumed in formal afternoon tastings at various locations, featuring old vintages, and also at many ad hoc winery visits, extra-curricular lunches, and dinners that followed. Basically, a f**kload of Nebbiolo was consumed, much to the delight of the organizers of Nebbiolo Prima, our hosts for the week.
Nebbiolo Prima is a loose conglomeration of Nebbiolo producers from the Barolo, Barbaresco and Roero zones, loosely (in an Italian sort of way) under the auspices of Albeisa (now presided over by the amiable Enzo Brezza) and the Consorzio di Tutela Barolo, Barbaresco, Alba, Langhe e Roero- headed up by Pietro Ratti) The producers pitch in funds every year to organize a grand week of intensive tastings and ancillary events for invited buyers and journalists, highlighting current vintages from the region and trotting out some older ones in the hopes that we’ll go back to our home countries and spread the word. So here I am! Spreading the word!
I mean, how could I not? Nebbiolo? Prima? Two of my favorite things!
The event began in, and was centered around, the city of Alba, one of Piemonte’s real gems. An opening party was held Sunday evening in the commandeered Piazza Savone, in the center of the city, and featured a grand selection of local whites and sparkling wines, buffet tables groaning with antipasti and a selection of local DOP cheeses, live music and a deadening slide show offered up by the Albeise bottle people, one of the event’s major underwriters. I got to Malpensa rather late, having left London at 2:30, renting a really cool Fiat Punto (150 km/hour on the autostrada, no sweat!) and making my way west with only a very vague idea of where I was going. I arrived just as the party was breaking up (and, unfortunately just as the Albeisa bottle video was starting), had a glass of Favorita, some smoked meats, a few bites of cheese and decided to drag my sleepy ass off to my hotel.
Driving in Italy, by the way, is a lot of fun. I know it gets a bad rap and I wasn’t, mind you, trying to negotiate roundabouts in central Roma with thirty angry Vespas buzzing on my tail, but the roads are clearly marked, for the most part in really good shape, and I found my fellow drivers to be uniformly courteous and polite. The new Italy! With the exception of a few notable bottlenecks, the streets of Alba are wide and clean and the roads in the wine country lots of fun to drive on. Of course that doesn’t mean this wasn’t Italy! One line-painting crew seemed to haunt me wherever I went and consisted of about thirty orange-clad smoking guys watching one of their party run a painting machine that laid down thick white paint over the old, faded road lines. Of course this also meant blocking half the road at a time when they did the crosswalks, creating a sort of two-way slalom effect which, when involving lots of oncoming trucks, made for some true road excitement.
In hindsight, I should have brought my annoying tom-tom or found some other GPS device to use. Even though the roads were nicely marked, it’s easy to get lost like I did, going from the opening party to the hotel, theoretically only ten minutes’ drive from the square. Ten minutes it is if you don’t circumnavigate the entire city of Alba first. After stopping first at a gas station and then at a gelateria, I finally found myself on what, in the daylight, proved to be a really beautiful, very windy, road rising through the Diano d’Alba hills to Benevello, one of the highest spots in the Langhe and home to the four-star Albergo Villa d’Amelia. I awoke at dawn to a stunning view from both windows of my corner room. Dominating the north-facing window at daybreak (don’t ask….I sleep terribly on these trips) was Mon Viso, the snowy crag featured at the beginning of every Paramount Pictures movie, and the rest of the Alps. Quite a way to wake up! I took a long walk to the town (if you can call it that) of Benevello, some twenty minutes up the hill and one of the highest points in the area, to see its medieval castello (not much left other than a wall and an intriguing-looking trattoria) and Renaissance-era church. The views from there, however, are unparalleled.
Monday, May 17th
At breakfast (the usual assortment of croissants, smoked meat, cheeses, granola, yogurt, juices and such that you find just about everywhere in Italy) I met the other buyers staying at the inn, including old friend John Downing, an LA retailer, Henry, the wine director at Del Posto in New York, Eric and Mao, he from Donatella in San Francisco and she a retailer in San Jose, Aussie wine importer David Lynch, Joanne Noto, a restaurant buyer from Grand Rapids Michigan, Brad, my doppelganger from Primo Vino (no, not Prima Vini) near Denver and an assortment of other retail and restaurant people numbering around 15. Then it was on the bus and off to Alba’s slick Ampelion, a wine and grape school and research center funded by the government, growers and producers of the area and, as it turned out, our private torture chamber. It was in the large open room at the center of the Ampelion where four Italian sommeliers, four young student assistants and a table laden with 86 open bottles of Nebbiolo awaited our arrival.
The tastings were fairly straightforward and the first day’s lineup started with the 2007 vintage of Roero and gradually segued to the 2007 vintage for the Barbareschi from the villages of Alba, Barbaresco and Treiso with, just for kicks, five 2005 Barbaresco Riservae. With little fanfare, while we sat there dumbfounded, gawking at the list, the Somms began their evil task, filling our five glasses with a seemingly endless succession of Nebbiolo while we swirled, gargled and spit ‘em back, scribbled notes and went on to the next. Every few flights the assistants would whisk away our overflowing spit buckets and replace them with empties. There was a napkin full of grissini, the local breadsticks I love so much, and an endless supply of Aqua Naturale, but nothing else separating us from the onslaught of Nebbiolo we were facing.
The wines were provided by the contributing producers, some 190 of them. Most all of the big names and many of the small ones were present, but I should point out that there were some wineries that declined to participate in the event and hence I did not taste them. Not seeing a particular name in my list of favorites does not imply that I did not like it; it may be that I simply didn’t taste it! But that list is small. On the first day, for instance, the only two names I can think of that weren’t present were Gaja and Rivetti.
Before the tasting, some interesting facts were noted about recent law changes, unique examples, I think, of Italian inmates running the asylum. The producers of the mainly Dolcetto wines in Diano d’Alba and Dogliani have decided, in their wisdom, to eliminate the word Dolcetto from their appellations. Dolcetto, they say, is a grape much maligned for its name, which many interpret to mean sweet. By eliminating it, they say, it will highlight their terroir rather than the grape name. Of course, what this means to me is that Diano and Dogliani will now take their place next to the other geographically-named appellations of the region: Barbaresco, Barolo and Roero, all three of which use Nebbiolo exclusively. What’s a consumer going to think about Diano or Dogliani? I think they are barking up the wrong tree on this one.
Alba has also jumped in to get its own DOC, which appears to be a catch-all term for anything made in the region that doesn’t qualify as one of the better appellations because a) they are using non-traditional grapes like Cabernet, or b) they want to declassify a wine or sell it at a non-DOCG sort of price but want it to have more cachet than, say, Nebbiolo della Langhe. Nothing like keeping it simple, folks.
And here’s the Only-In-Italy rule: Roero, which lobbied hard to get its own name so it would be perceived on a par with Barolo and Barbaresco, was successful in the endeavor only by including a 5% addition of Arneis to the DOCG blend to diversify itself from those two. That was the rule. However, in practice, not one winemaker I asked ever actually added Arneis to his Nebbiolo. I mean, why would they? So, this year, in their wisdom, they eliminated the requirement. Uh, ok.
I made notes for everything I tasted (I used up an entire pen!) and scored them with my usual *-**** star rating. I use (-) or (+) when I think I might have room one way or another and I usually save my **** for wines that completely blow me away, something that just doesn’t happen in a tasting of this sort. In the interest of space, I’ve decided only to mention here the wines I scored *** or higher, as these are solid recommendations that no one, I think, would be unhappy with. In the event something was particularly disappointing, I’ll mention that, too.
But first, some general comments about the first day’s tasting. I won’t write about the specifics of the 2007 vintage here, as there are plenty of other pundits out there who have written of them, and I’d just be copying. It was, by all accounts, though, a very good, if very ripe, one. I found it, in the Roero and Barbaresco, an interesting and confounding one. It certainly scored high for drinkability, as there were few wines that weren’t succulent and delicious; however, unlike Barolo, as I will get to later, as a group these wines lacked a certain Nebbiolo-ness. In other words, they were ripe to the point where the essential seductive characteristics of the Nebbiolo grape becomes masked by a level of concentrated fruit (and elevated alcohol) that leaves one wondering where they would have fit in had the tasting been blind and other grapes been included. Roero, in particular, had a rough go of it. I think the winemaking here is still rather immature and no consensus of style has emerged. If you used too much barrique in 2007, for example, you made a particularly generic sort of red, good to drink but not at all thrilling to the Nebbiolo purist. I am not meaning to tar the entire vintage (so to speak) with one brush, but one has to be a bit careful when purchasing these 2007s if one’s goal is long-term cellaring. There are, as you can see from the notes below, still plenty of nice wines from which to choose.
In tasting these wines I focused on three benchmarks I established for the vintage and put each wine on an imaginary line graph with marks for where it fit in….if a given wine surpassed the average on each count, it got its ***! It ain’t rocket science, but when tasting this many wines, it became very easy. I looked for the following:
-Fruit: sour (Morello) cherry that ran to darker, almost chocolate cherry fruit the riper it got. The best had a touch of austerity with something like fennel seed leaning towards pine resin in there.
-Tannins- on almost all, they spread out at the back of your mouth. The best had nice ripe tannins that seemed to flow naturally from the density of the texture. A leaner wine with a lot of crisp tannin doesn’t bode well in my mind, but there were a few of those.
-Freshness. In a vintage like 2007, fresh acidity could be an issue. My favorites may have been ripe, had a ton of fruit, generous oak and such, but also good freshness. It’s a point in this vintage.
***+
2007 Cascina Morassino Barbaresco Ovello- Wow! Is this ever good!
2007 Ca’ du Rabaja Barbaresco Rabaja- juicy, well-filled, oaky, luscious
2005 Produttori del Barbaresco Riserva Rio Sordo- a complex, classical wine
***
2007 Az Ag Cornarea Roero Rosso- oaky and sweet
2007 Bel Colle Roero Rosso Monvije- powerful but balanced
2007 Negro Angelo e figli di Giovanni Negro Roero Rosso Prachioso- herbal, complex
2007 Fabrizio Battagliano Roero Rosso Sergentin- beautiful
2006 Monchiero Carbone Roero Riserva Printi- complete
2006 Matteo Corregio Roero Riserva Ampsej- balanced and complete
2006 Negro Angelo Roero Riserva Sudisfa
2007 Az ag Molino Barbaresco Teorema- sweet fruit
2007 Orlando Abrigo Barbaresco Valgrande- concentrated, woody
2007 Eredi Lodali Barbaresco La Casa in Collina- Cab-like, curranty
2007 Az Ag Pelissero Barbaresco Ausario- complete, gorgeous
2007 Pertinace Barbaresco Vigneto Nerve- woody, sweet, good drink
2007 Grasso Fratelli Barbaresco Vallegrande- easy to love
2007 Pertinace Barbaresco Marcaini- exuberant and fresh
2007 Sottimano Barbaresco Pajore- linear, complex
2007 Cantina del Pino Barbaresco- perfumed, exotic
2007 Produttori del Barbaresco- powerful, intense, complete
2007 La Spinona Barbaresco La Spinona- Bricco Faset- plumy, oaky
2007 Montiribaldi Barbaresco Sori Montiribaldi- soft but balanced
2007 Marchese di Gresy (Tenute Cisy Asinati) Barbaresco Martinenga- juicy, round
2007 Albino Rocca Barbaresco Vigneto Brich Ronchi- plenty of everything!
2007 Cortese Giuseppe Barbaresco Rabaja- sweet, balanced
2007 Bruno Rocca Barbaresco Rabaja- simply stellar
2005 Piazzo Armando Barbaresco Riserva Nervo Vigna Giaia- blockish, earth, tar
2005 Nada Giuseppe Barbaresco Riserva Casot- juicy and balanced
Do you want to see my disappointments, too? Of course you do. No one wants to see only the good stuff! Here are some names that didn’t perform well for me.
2007 Giovanni Almondo Roero Bric Valdiana (but their Arneis rules!)
2007 Albino Rocca Barbareco……two corked bottles and one that was impossibly lean
2007 Prunotto Barbaresco….earthy, stinky….no.
2007 Rattalino Barbaresco…..how could you like a wine called Rattalino!
2007 Bruno Rocca Barbaresco….first bottle corked, second was weird
2007 Michele Chiarlo Barbaresco Asili….primary, brutal!
2005 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco Riserva Pora ….was it corked?
Shoot…..four pages and still before lunch on Day One!
We took the bus to the Albergo dell’Agenzia at the University of Pollenzo for a much-needed buffet lunch and another tasting, this time with the producers themselves showing up to four wines each, including where possible, wines from vintage 2000, now 10 years old. This tasting was a walk-around with people filtering in and out of the room as the hours progressed.
Noted: the tasting was to highlight the 2000 vintage in Roero at ten years old. The results? Not so good. The wines, taken as a group, were far advanced with fading fruit and still very grippy tannins. Of course, ten years ago, many of the winemakers in this room were barely out of diapers and Roero still seems to me to be a decade behind its older neighbors in terms of track record and confident winemaking. They get a pass. The Barbareschi in the room were better but still not of the character that made me excited about having a cellar full of them. What was up with the Wine Spectator rating that vintage in Piemonte 100 points? Of course, the 2000 Baroli have yet to be tried, but there are some serious questions here.
I didn’t find any wines in the afternoon tasting I would mention here other than several duplicates of the 2007s that I liked from the earlier session. Ca’ de Rabaja is a real find in Barbaresco. I understand that they will be imported into California this summer, and I will be first in line. I also noted that the 1999 Malvira Roero Monbeltrame, the only 1999 in the room, was a lovely testament to what a good vintage that was. Compared with Malvira’s lean, green and bitterly tannic 2000, the 1999 was everything an eleven-year-old wine should be, complex with balsamic, bitter cherry and fading roses. It was the exception that seemed to prove the rule about 2000.
After lunch, three of us, including the aforementioned Henry and David visited the famed cellars of Giuseppe Rinaldi in Barolo. While Beppe was in town doing something or other, we were shown around by his lovely school teacher wife and their daughter Marta, the heir apparent to the Rinaldi winemaking throne. Marta, 25, is fresh out of enology school and ready to go! Her Christmas present to her white wine-loving mom was to make a Riesling-based sparkling wine, the results of which are sitting in a riddling rack in the downstairs cellar. Mom has pronounced the wine ‘pretty good.’ The Rinaldi own 6.5 hectares split (not all evenly) among the Le Coste vineyard right across the street from the winery, the Ravera cru, a spot in Cannubi-San Lorenzo (the very top of Cannubi) and 2 ha in the Barolo part of Brunate. They are split into two cuvees: the winery’s signature Brunate-Le Coste and the Cannubi San Lorenzo-Ravera. We tasted from a 2007 cask of the latter that was simply ravishing. I didn’t want to spit. A 2007 Le Coste was really, really pretty and a sample of the 2007 Brunate was as close to Grand Cru Burgundy as you’ll ever get from Nebbiolo. Marta also opened for us a 1998 Brunate-Le Coste at my request. 1998 has become one of my favorite vintages of late and I wanted to see how the always late-blooming, traditionally-made Rinaldi was doing at 12 since I don’t have any myself. Mom called it a ‘rude’ vintage in the sense that it had big, angry tannins and acidity when young. And you know what? It still does. Dense still, the nose has barely begun to show the classic cardamom and spice characters I associate with this property, and the tannins and acidity are still very palpable. If you have any, put it away! Really nice was a 2008 Nebbiolo that had been bottled in April. Sweet fruit, svelte tannins and a lovely Burgundian character. The 2006 Brunate-Le Coste was sweet with cardamom and cinnamon, while the 2006 Cannubi-Ravera was a powerhouse.
Also tasted from the barrel: 2009 Barbera and 2008 Brunate.
I’ll have more to say about Marta and the rise of the young woman winemaker in Piemonte later, but it’s interesting to note that there are no stylistic or winemaking changes planned at this iconic traditional winemaking property despite the arrival of this well-trained, obviously very bright winemaking force. We can all take solace in that! And for more on Marta, check her out on YouTube searching for Le Rinaldi in Campo.
We were dropped back into Alba following the tasting only to be loaded on the bus for a barbecue out in the country featuring a score of Dolcetto winemakers and a load of meat. Dolcetto, the claim goes, is the perfect wine for barbecue, being fruit-driven with nice tannins and enough acidity to tame the fattiest beast. Still, much to the chagrin of the winemakers trying to create a constituency for the grape, for the money, even after (or maybe particularly after) drinking two dozen alongside grilled chicken, lamb, sausages and a magnificent hunk of Piemontese beef, I would rather drink Cotes du Rhone, Spanish Monastrell, Garnacha or Tinto de Toro-based reds, Aussie GSM or even American Zin at the backyard meat-a-thon. This is not to say there weren’t some fun wines amongst the two dozen, however, with favorites coming from Bruna Grimaldi, G D Vajra, Francesco Boschis and Punset.
Back on the bus and in bed by midnight. Total body count for the day? 133.
Following are my notes from my recent week-long trip to Italy completed yesterday. It's only Day One. There are six more to go!
Piemonte, May 15-22
Sunday Evening, May 16th
At the risk of violating the copyright for Wheaties (or Kurt Vonnegut’s for that matter), I defy anyone to surpass wines made from the Nebbiolo grape as a preferred way to break fast. In fact, our small group consumed some 350 different versions over four days of tasting, all before lunch! The other 200 or so wines were consumed in formal afternoon tastings at various locations, featuring old vintages, and also at many ad hoc winery visits, extra-curricular lunches, and dinners that followed. Basically, a f**kload of Nebbiolo was consumed, much to the delight of the organizers of Nebbiolo Prima, our hosts for the week.
Nebbiolo Prima is a loose conglomeration of Nebbiolo producers from the Barolo, Barbaresco and Roero zones, loosely (in an Italian sort of way) under the auspices of Albeisa (now presided over by the amiable Enzo Brezza) and the Consorzio di Tutela Barolo, Barbaresco, Alba, Langhe e Roero- headed up by Pietro Ratti) The producers pitch in funds every year to organize a grand week of intensive tastings and ancillary events for invited buyers and journalists, highlighting current vintages from the region and trotting out some older ones in the hopes that we’ll go back to our home countries and spread the word. So here I am! Spreading the word!
I mean, how could I not? Nebbiolo? Prima? Two of my favorite things!
The event began in, and was centered around, the city of Alba, one of Piemonte’s real gems. An opening party was held Sunday evening in the commandeered Piazza Savone, in the center of the city, and featured a grand selection of local whites and sparkling wines, buffet tables groaning with antipasti and a selection of local DOP cheeses, live music and a deadening slide show offered up by the Albeise bottle people, one of the event’s major underwriters. I got to Malpensa rather late, having left London at 2:30, renting a really cool Fiat Punto (150 km/hour on the autostrada, no sweat!) and making my way west with only a very vague idea of where I was going. I arrived just as the party was breaking up (and, unfortunately just as the Albeisa bottle video was starting), had a glass of Favorita, some smoked meats, a few bites of cheese and decided to drag my sleepy ass off to my hotel.
Driving in Italy, by the way, is a lot of fun. I know it gets a bad rap and I wasn’t, mind you, trying to negotiate roundabouts in central Roma with thirty angry Vespas buzzing on my tail, but the roads are clearly marked, for the most part in really good shape, and I found my fellow drivers to be uniformly courteous and polite. The new Italy! With the exception of a few notable bottlenecks, the streets of Alba are wide and clean and the roads in the wine country lots of fun to drive on. Of course that doesn’t mean this wasn’t Italy! One line-painting crew seemed to haunt me wherever I went and consisted of about thirty orange-clad smoking guys watching one of their party run a painting machine that laid down thick white paint over the old, faded road lines. Of course this also meant blocking half the road at a time when they did the crosswalks, creating a sort of two-way slalom effect which, when involving lots of oncoming trucks, made for some true road excitement.
In hindsight, I should have brought my annoying tom-tom or found some other GPS device to use. Even though the roads were nicely marked, it’s easy to get lost like I did, going from the opening party to the hotel, theoretically only ten minutes’ drive from the square. Ten minutes it is if you don’t circumnavigate the entire city of Alba first. After stopping first at a gas station and then at a gelateria, I finally found myself on what, in the daylight, proved to be a really beautiful, very windy, road rising through the Diano d’Alba hills to Benevello, one of the highest spots in the Langhe and home to the four-star Albergo Villa d’Amelia. I awoke at dawn to a stunning view from both windows of my corner room. Dominating the north-facing window at daybreak (don’t ask….I sleep terribly on these trips) was Mon Viso, the snowy crag featured at the beginning of every Paramount Pictures movie, and the rest of the Alps. Quite a way to wake up! I took a long walk to the town (if you can call it that) of Benevello, some twenty minutes up the hill and one of the highest points in the area, to see its medieval castello (not much left other than a wall and an intriguing-looking trattoria) and Renaissance-era church. The views from there, however, are unparalleled.
Monday, May 17th
At breakfast (the usual assortment of croissants, smoked meat, cheeses, granola, yogurt, juices and such that you find just about everywhere in Italy) I met the other buyers staying at the inn, including old friend John Downing, an LA retailer, Henry, the wine director at Del Posto in New York, Eric and Mao, he from Donatella in San Francisco and she a retailer in San Jose, Aussie wine importer David Lynch, Joanne Noto, a restaurant buyer from Grand Rapids Michigan, Brad, my doppelganger from Primo Vino (no, not Prima Vini) near Denver and an assortment of other retail and restaurant people numbering around 15. Then it was on the bus and off to Alba’s slick Ampelion, a wine and grape school and research center funded by the government, growers and producers of the area and, as it turned out, our private torture chamber. It was in the large open room at the center of the Ampelion where four Italian sommeliers, four young student assistants and a table laden with 86 open bottles of Nebbiolo awaited our arrival.
The tastings were fairly straightforward and the first day’s lineup started with the 2007 vintage of Roero and gradually segued to the 2007 vintage for the Barbareschi from the villages of Alba, Barbaresco and Treiso with, just for kicks, five 2005 Barbaresco Riservae. With little fanfare, while we sat there dumbfounded, gawking at the list, the Somms began their evil task, filling our five glasses with a seemingly endless succession of Nebbiolo while we swirled, gargled and spit ‘em back, scribbled notes and went on to the next. Every few flights the assistants would whisk away our overflowing spit buckets and replace them with empties. There was a napkin full of grissini, the local breadsticks I love so much, and an endless supply of Aqua Naturale, but nothing else separating us from the onslaught of Nebbiolo we were facing.
The wines were provided by the contributing producers, some 190 of them. Most all of the big names and many of the small ones were present, but I should point out that there were some wineries that declined to participate in the event and hence I did not taste them. Not seeing a particular name in my list of favorites does not imply that I did not like it; it may be that I simply didn’t taste it! But that list is small. On the first day, for instance, the only two names I can think of that weren’t present were Gaja and Rivetti.
Before the tasting, some interesting facts were noted about recent law changes, unique examples, I think, of Italian inmates running the asylum. The producers of the mainly Dolcetto wines in Diano d’Alba and Dogliani have decided, in their wisdom, to eliminate the word Dolcetto from their appellations. Dolcetto, they say, is a grape much maligned for its name, which many interpret to mean sweet. By eliminating it, they say, it will highlight their terroir rather than the grape name. Of course, what this means to me is that Diano and Dogliani will now take their place next to the other geographically-named appellations of the region: Barbaresco, Barolo and Roero, all three of which use Nebbiolo exclusively. What’s a consumer going to think about Diano or Dogliani? I think they are barking up the wrong tree on this one.
Alba has also jumped in to get its own DOC, which appears to be a catch-all term for anything made in the region that doesn’t qualify as one of the better appellations because a) they are using non-traditional grapes like Cabernet, or b) they want to declassify a wine or sell it at a non-DOCG sort of price but want it to have more cachet than, say, Nebbiolo della Langhe. Nothing like keeping it simple, folks.
And here’s the Only-In-Italy rule: Roero, which lobbied hard to get its own name so it would be perceived on a par with Barolo and Barbaresco, was successful in the endeavor only by including a 5% addition of Arneis to the DOCG blend to diversify itself from those two. That was the rule. However, in practice, not one winemaker I asked ever actually added Arneis to his Nebbiolo. I mean, why would they? So, this year, in their wisdom, they eliminated the requirement. Uh, ok.
I made notes for everything I tasted (I used up an entire pen!) and scored them with my usual *-**** star rating. I use (-) or (+) when I think I might have room one way or another and I usually save my **** for wines that completely blow me away, something that just doesn’t happen in a tasting of this sort. In the interest of space, I’ve decided only to mention here the wines I scored *** or higher, as these are solid recommendations that no one, I think, would be unhappy with. In the event something was particularly disappointing, I’ll mention that, too.
But first, some general comments about the first day’s tasting. I won’t write about the specifics of the 2007 vintage here, as there are plenty of other pundits out there who have written of them, and I’d just be copying. It was, by all accounts, though, a very good, if very ripe, one. I found it, in the Roero and Barbaresco, an interesting and confounding one. It certainly scored high for drinkability, as there were few wines that weren’t succulent and delicious; however, unlike Barolo, as I will get to later, as a group these wines lacked a certain Nebbiolo-ness. In other words, they were ripe to the point where the essential seductive characteristics of the Nebbiolo grape becomes masked by a level of concentrated fruit (and elevated alcohol) that leaves one wondering where they would have fit in had the tasting been blind and other grapes been included. Roero, in particular, had a rough go of it. I think the winemaking here is still rather immature and no consensus of style has emerged. If you used too much barrique in 2007, for example, you made a particularly generic sort of red, good to drink but not at all thrilling to the Nebbiolo purist. I am not meaning to tar the entire vintage (so to speak) with one brush, but one has to be a bit careful when purchasing these 2007s if one’s goal is long-term cellaring. There are, as you can see from the notes below, still plenty of nice wines from which to choose.
In tasting these wines I focused on three benchmarks I established for the vintage and put each wine on an imaginary line graph with marks for where it fit in….if a given wine surpassed the average on each count, it got its ***! It ain’t rocket science, but when tasting this many wines, it became very easy. I looked for the following:
-Fruit: sour (Morello) cherry that ran to darker, almost chocolate cherry fruit the riper it got. The best had a touch of austerity with something like fennel seed leaning towards pine resin in there.
-Tannins- on almost all, they spread out at the back of your mouth. The best had nice ripe tannins that seemed to flow naturally from the density of the texture. A leaner wine with a lot of crisp tannin doesn’t bode well in my mind, but there were a few of those.
-Freshness. In a vintage like 2007, fresh acidity could be an issue. My favorites may have been ripe, had a ton of fruit, generous oak and such, but also good freshness. It’s a point in this vintage.
***+
2007 Cascina Morassino Barbaresco Ovello- Wow! Is this ever good!
2007 Ca’ du Rabaja Barbaresco Rabaja- juicy, well-filled, oaky, luscious
2005 Produttori del Barbaresco Riserva Rio Sordo- a complex, classical wine
***
2007 Az Ag Cornarea Roero Rosso- oaky and sweet
2007 Bel Colle Roero Rosso Monvije- powerful but balanced
2007 Negro Angelo e figli di Giovanni Negro Roero Rosso Prachioso- herbal, complex
2007 Fabrizio Battagliano Roero Rosso Sergentin- beautiful
2006 Monchiero Carbone Roero Riserva Printi- complete
2006 Matteo Corregio Roero Riserva Ampsej- balanced and complete
2006 Negro Angelo Roero Riserva Sudisfa
2007 Az ag Molino Barbaresco Teorema- sweet fruit
2007 Orlando Abrigo Barbaresco Valgrande- concentrated, woody
2007 Eredi Lodali Barbaresco La Casa in Collina- Cab-like, curranty
2007 Az Ag Pelissero Barbaresco Ausario- complete, gorgeous
2007 Pertinace Barbaresco Vigneto Nerve- woody, sweet, good drink
2007 Grasso Fratelli Barbaresco Vallegrande- easy to love
2007 Pertinace Barbaresco Marcaini- exuberant and fresh
2007 Sottimano Barbaresco Pajore- linear, complex
2007 Cantina del Pino Barbaresco- perfumed, exotic
2007 Produttori del Barbaresco- powerful, intense, complete
2007 La Spinona Barbaresco La Spinona- Bricco Faset- plumy, oaky
2007 Montiribaldi Barbaresco Sori Montiribaldi- soft but balanced
2007 Marchese di Gresy (Tenute Cisy Asinati) Barbaresco Martinenga- juicy, round
2007 Albino Rocca Barbaresco Vigneto Brich Ronchi- plenty of everything!
2007 Cortese Giuseppe Barbaresco Rabaja- sweet, balanced
2007 Bruno Rocca Barbaresco Rabaja- simply stellar
2005 Piazzo Armando Barbaresco Riserva Nervo Vigna Giaia- blockish, earth, tar
2005 Nada Giuseppe Barbaresco Riserva Casot- juicy and balanced
Do you want to see my disappointments, too? Of course you do. No one wants to see only the good stuff! Here are some names that didn’t perform well for me.
2007 Giovanni Almondo Roero Bric Valdiana (but their Arneis rules!)
2007 Albino Rocca Barbareco……two corked bottles and one that was impossibly lean
2007 Prunotto Barbaresco….earthy, stinky….no.
2007 Rattalino Barbaresco…..how could you like a wine called Rattalino!
2007 Bruno Rocca Barbaresco….first bottle corked, second was weird
2007 Michele Chiarlo Barbaresco Asili….primary, brutal!
2005 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco Riserva Pora ….was it corked?
Shoot…..four pages and still before lunch on Day One!
We took the bus to the Albergo dell’Agenzia at the University of Pollenzo for a much-needed buffet lunch and another tasting, this time with the producers themselves showing up to four wines each, including where possible, wines from vintage 2000, now 10 years old. This tasting was a walk-around with people filtering in and out of the room as the hours progressed.
Noted: the tasting was to highlight the 2000 vintage in Roero at ten years old. The results? Not so good. The wines, taken as a group, were far advanced with fading fruit and still very grippy tannins. Of course, ten years ago, many of the winemakers in this room were barely out of diapers and Roero still seems to me to be a decade behind its older neighbors in terms of track record and confident winemaking. They get a pass. The Barbareschi in the room were better but still not of the character that made me excited about having a cellar full of them. What was up with the Wine Spectator rating that vintage in Piemonte 100 points? Of course, the 2000 Baroli have yet to be tried, but there are some serious questions here.
I didn’t find any wines in the afternoon tasting I would mention here other than several duplicates of the 2007s that I liked from the earlier session. Ca’ de Rabaja is a real find in Barbaresco. I understand that they will be imported into California this summer, and I will be first in line. I also noted that the 1999 Malvira Roero Monbeltrame, the only 1999 in the room, was a lovely testament to what a good vintage that was. Compared with Malvira’s lean, green and bitterly tannic 2000, the 1999 was everything an eleven-year-old wine should be, complex with balsamic, bitter cherry and fading roses. It was the exception that seemed to prove the rule about 2000.
After lunch, three of us, including the aforementioned Henry and David visited the famed cellars of Giuseppe Rinaldi in Barolo. While Beppe was in town doing something or other, we were shown around by his lovely school teacher wife and their daughter Marta, the heir apparent to the Rinaldi winemaking throne. Marta, 25, is fresh out of enology school and ready to go! Her Christmas present to her white wine-loving mom was to make a Riesling-based sparkling wine, the results of which are sitting in a riddling rack in the downstairs cellar. Mom has pronounced the wine ‘pretty good.’ The Rinaldi own 6.5 hectares split (not all evenly) among the Le Coste vineyard right across the street from the winery, the Ravera cru, a spot in Cannubi-San Lorenzo (the very top of Cannubi) and 2 ha in the Barolo part of Brunate. They are split into two cuvees: the winery’s signature Brunate-Le Coste and the Cannubi San Lorenzo-Ravera. We tasted from a 2007 cask of the latter that was simply ravishing. I didn’t want to spit. A 2007 Le Coste was really, really pretty and a sample of the 2007 Brunate was as close to Grand Cru Burgundy as you’ll ever get from Nebbiolo. Marta also opened for us a 1998 Brunate-Le Coste at my request. 1998 has become one of my favorite vintages of late and I wanted to see how the always late-blooming, traditionally-made Rinaldi was doing at 12 since I don’t have any myself. Mom called it a ‘rude’ vintage in the sense that it had big, angry tannins and acidity when young. And you know what? It still does. Dense still, the nose has barely begun to show the classic cardamom and spice characters I associate with this property, and the tannins and acidity are still very palpable. If you have any, put it away! Really nice was a 2008 Nebbiolo that had been bottled in April. Sweet fruit, svelte tannins and a lovely Burgundian character. The 2006 Brunate-Le Coste was sweet with cardamom and cinnamon, while the 2006 Cannubi-Ravera was a powerhouse.
Also tasted from the barrel: 2009 Barbera and 2008 Brunate.
I’ll have more to say about Marta and the rise of the young woman winemaker in Piemonte later, but it’s interesting to note that there are no stylistic or winemaking changes planned at this iconic traditional winemaking property despite the arrival of this well-trained, obviously very bright winemaking force. We can all take solace in that! And for more on Marta, check her out on YouTube searching for Le Rinaldi in Campo.
We were dropped back into Alba following the tasting only to be loaded on the bus for a barbecue out in the country featuring a score of Dolcetto winemakers and a load of meat. Dolcetto, the claim goes, is the perfect wine for barbecue, being fruit-driven with nice tannins and enough acidity to tame the fattiest beast. Still, much to the chagrin of the winemakers trying to create a constituency for the grape, for the money, even after (or maybe particularly after) drinking two dozen alongside grilled chicken, lamb, sausages and a magnificent hunk of Piemontese beef, I would rather drink Cotes du Rhone, Spanish Monastrell, Garnacha or Tinto de Toro-based reds, Aussie GSM or even American Zin at the backyard meat-a-thon. This is not to say there weren’t some fun wines amongst the two dozen, however, with favorites coming from Bruna Grimaldi, G D Vajra, Francesco Boschis and Punset.
Back on the bus and in bed by midnight. Total body count for the day? 133.
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