Milano-Malpensa- Verduno- Rochetta-TanaroA highly decorated veteran of the travel wars, colleague Brandon had a sweet BMW 1 series sedan waiting for us at Milano-Malpensa, a deal that cost us less than my usual balky-wimpy Fiat Punto. We'd log a lot of miles in this car...Brandon, me and our faithful, if erratic, GPS Dorothy.
With Brandon at the wheel and Dorothy and I navigating, we were in the Barolo's outpost town Verduno in under two hours. The Castello Di Verduno, where we were to be guests of importer George Tita and his stable of Piemontese winemakers, is the area's best accommodation, filled with character. Even the fact that Brandon and I had to bunk together in the double bed didn't detract from its rustic charm.
After putting our feet up for a few minutes on our balcony overlooking the main part of the Castello, we made the forty minute drive out towards Monferrato, back east in the hills towards Alessandria for a meeting at the Braida-Giacomo Bologna cantina and an interesting pre-prandrial visit to their vineyards with owner Rafaella Bologna where we saw where their famed Barbera-based wines are born. Old vines, great aspects and years and years of experience are the secrets here.
Just a few minutes from the cantina, at the Bologna family's own restaurant, is where we met winemaker and old friend Giorgio Pelissero and a couple of other friends for a leisurely (is there ever any other kind of meal in Piemonte?) dinner made even more entertaining by the busload of 40 partying German ladies and a local entertainer banging out Volare, My Way and other such nuggets while we ate the usual local Piemontese fare (say it with me now: 'Agnolotti dal Plin') and drank Bologna's excellent wines, a fine 'normale' Barbera d'Asti and their host of single-vineyard and the Super Piemontese Ai Summa. Very happy to get back to our Castello once jet lag firmly took hold, and even if we did have to share a bed, Brandon and I were too damned tired to care.
Saturday, May 12
Verduno-La Morra/Santa Maria-Cherasco-Verduno-encore La Morra
I took Brandon up to the top of La Morra first thing Saturday to give him the lay of the land. I this should be the first stop for anyone wanting to know Barolo as the lookout area next to Ristorante Belvedere affords one a view of virtually the entire Barolo appellation, from La Morra's own top vineyards clear to the front side of Serralunga and Monforte. From there, it was a short drive to Santa Maria and the Oddero's cantina at Bricco Chiesa.
We were shown around by old friend Isabella Boffa, who, with her aunt Marie-Cristina, run this venerable address. It's a regular stop for me and I've seen the vineyards and tasted most everything they've produced back to the sixties, but for Brandon, or anyone else wanting to experience Barolo, this is a great visit. They are generous with their wines: a pleasant white that will soon be built on Riesling, a sturdy Barbera and a stable of Nebbiolo-based wines including a fine family holding in Gallina in Barbaresco, a Barolo based on their holdings at the cantina and in Bricco Fiasco in Monforte, and single vineyard wines from Bussia (Soprana Mondoca and Rocche de Castiglione, Villero, a Vignarionda Riserva now only to be released ten years after the vintage, and, clearly a favorite, a good holding at the very top of Brunate). While the former group of wines (and a good Moscato) are longtime staples at Oddero, Brunate only goes back to 2004, and is really the first new wine of what Cristina and Isabella call 'the new regime' at the property. The wine is very good- a little less mineral and more fruit driven than the winery's other Baroli and, in 2008, a Brunate vintage for sure, a great success. Cristina and her 20 year old son Pietro joined us after the tasting and it was off to a simple, fun lunch at the venerable La Torre in Cherasco.
Pietro, by the way, is studying Economics in Torino and looks to eventually be the next generation to take a role in this most family of businesses.
After lunch we went up the hill a bit and back down to Annunziata and a cantina visit with Davide ... . George had invited his whole crew and then some to dinner with a few of us buyers in La Morra at one of my favorite places, More e Macine. In addition to a boatload of wines, each presented by the winemaker, the lineup included a magnum or two of Champagne 'sabered' by local celeb Owner/Sommelier ..... with a butter knife, a parlor trick for which he's quite famous and the bottom part of a 3 liter bottle of 1964 Marchese di Barolo Barolo which, thanks to our inability to actually finish this thing, became something of a mascot of ours for a few days. In fact, I have this great photo of Premier Cru Mike and Brandon wandering around Verduno at 1:30 looking for some danger and carrying the damned bottle around.
Sunday, May 13
This, our day off, was the day to show Brandon 'the other side' of Barolo, a village-to-village drive ending, not by design, in Sinio and an impromptu visit to old friend and castle-keeper Denise Pardini.
But before that, we circumnavigated Castiglione Falletto, Barolo, Monforte d'Alba and Serralunga, including a hair-raising drive around some of the 'roads' in Ginestra and a great little lunch at Il Centro, a sparkling wine lovers dream right at the base of Serralunga castle.
The weather had changed yesterday, going from the low thirties (C) to the low twenties and after a brief shower Saturday afternoon, a wind came up and blew out all the funk. The views from everywhere in Barolo were amazing and the quality of sunlight stunning. If you weren't a fan of Piemonte before Sunday, you stood no chance after! It was indescribably beautiful and one of those memorable days you wish you could bottle and keep...like Barolo!
On a whim, we popped in on Walnut Creek native and proprietor of the once-ruined castle she turned to a lovely inn in Sinio, a small village about 7 kilometers down the hill from Serralunga. Denise organized and led a trip I once took here with a dozen or so PRIMA customers and my late, great father-in-law Bob Poole. During that visit, she took us to see the ancient pile of rocks and shared with us her vision for a fabulous hotel and cooking school. Now, seven years later, Castello di Sinio is where I send anyone seeking first class **** accommodations near Barolo. Denise is a helluva cook (and an ex-chef) and though she doesn't usually cater to those not staying in one of the castle's 15 or so rooms, it's worth a try to get a seat in her dining room. Her food (which we had a chance to experience Thursday night) is amongst the very best in the area. And I say that having eaten just about everywhere in the region over the years. www.castellodisinio.com Worth a stay!
Denise was kind enough to leave her Sunday afternoon paperwork, open a bottle of Prosecco and share with us the trials and tribulations she faces as an inn keeper in Piemonte, not an easy task for the most intrepid of natives much less a Walnut Creek girl just learning Italian! Sounded like the X rated version of 'Under The Tuscan Sun.'
It was, with great regret, that we took our leave to finish our journey, move our luggage into the Hotel Calissano in Alba and make the scene at Nebbiolo Prima's annual welcome bash. The Hotel Calissano is where the so-called 'buyers' stay during this event while the journalist participants stay in 'I Castelli', a few blocks away. I think the buyers have made out!
Calissano is a modern, clean and very efficient (Ok, it doesn't have a lot of character but so what?) hotel just a few steps from everywhere we have to be during the event....I walk to the Ampelion, where we taste, to the Palazzo di Savona and Via Emmanuel Vittoria, where we hang out, and to the City Center where the seminars are held and from where the various shuttles around the area leave. There's not a lot of exercise time with which to counter the effects of over-consumption of food and wine on the trip so I value the walking. Good breakfast and a nice bar, too. Sure, you can get lots more personality (and bad plumbing) if you stay in La Morra, Barolo or one of the other villages, but I don't think you can beat Calissano for convenience if your travels are going to take you east of Barolo, like to Roero, the Barbaresco villages or the Asti zone.
Nebbiolo Prima kicks off with a party for everyone in Alba's Duomo Square with free flowing wine, antipasti and multilingual conversation as the reunion of conference vets, winemakers and those attending for the first time commences. Brandon and I get a few tasty sounding invites for dinner afterwards but all involve turning this into a late night, so we opt instead for pizza and beer just a few steps away with Leslie and ......, s Minnesota couple now living in Alba where they lead tours and 'consult.' They brought some winemaker friends from Barbaresco and Asti with whom they work and we consulted with them on some pfatty pies and great local beer. With 60-70 glasses of Nebbiolo awaiting us at 9 AM tomorrow, it was the best thing we could have done!
Nebbiolo Prima, 2012 Monday, May 14
Setting the scene: The morning tastings are held in Alba's Ampelion, part of Piemonte's wine research facilities. The clean, spacious building is set on top of a hill striped with row upon row of vines growing every kind of grape I've ever heard of in Northern Italy. We gather around nine, most taking the shuttle bus from the hotel (I walk) and take a seat at the five-person long desks lining the classroom. At the front of the room are three long white tablecloth covered tables with 4 bottles each of (today) 67 wines. This is the tasting for buyers, not journalists. It's not blind like it is for them, the idea being that we're looking for discoveries rather than any sort of in-depth analysis and I suppose it makes sense. We do taste, I believe, with prejudice when we can see the labels but most of us have been in the game long enough to know when someone we want to well is underperforming or someone who normally makes mediocre wine strikes gold.
After we condition our glasses with a control red, the wines are poured in flights of five by three (usually) stone-faced professional Italian sommeliers in full regalia. You know me. I am not happy until I can get ours to crack a smile and I wasn't successful in the least until, on the third day, he accidentally dumped a glass of Barolo into my lap. Now that was funny!
We have a few minutes to evaluate the wines, make notes on the spreadsheets were are given and contemplate how numb the tannin in the Nebbiolo is making our lips and palates. We empty out the glass into small plastic spit buckets (which are replaced when full- and they get very full- by a couple of teenaged kids that serve as helpers) and the next flight arrives. We plow through these wines for three hours or so, until, with great relief, the last wine is dumped and we can run off in search of a glass of something white before our very pleasant buffet lunch is served in the Ampelion courtyard.
It goes like this from Monday until Friday, an actually welcome change from the Monday-Thursday regimen that saw us drinking 20% more wine in one fewer day with sessions sometimes nearing 100 wines! Quite a few producers have ceased participating in Nebbiolo Prima. The investment is great (I hear at least E1000 per winery, plus wine, etc.) and, for the many so-so wineries who fail to do well in the tastings year after year, it's not a good use of resources. And, frankly, I am happy not to have them there anyway. Giorgio Pelissero said one producer told him that 'I come in 100 out of 100 every year so why should I waste my money.' Indeed. Save your money and keep making shitty wine!
This year the days played out like this: Monday, Roero 2009, Roero 2007 Riserva
The 2009 Vintage For Roero
What a pleasant surprise the 2009 vintage has turned out to be in Roero. After two years of rather painful tastings in the category two things are apparent. The first is that a lot of pikers no longer participate in this tasting. The number of entries was down significantly and the names that remain are amongst the best in the region. That's good news. I think, as Giorgio Pelissero said at dinner the other night, "some producers were tired of bieng 25 out of 25 every year." Don't miss 'em.
The second is that the vintage has produced many really good, really succulent wines within a fairly narrow range of variation...let's say, if such a thing could be quantified, 20% against, let's say, 60% cumulatively over the past few vintages I've tasted. The best have lovely red cherry fruit, nicely balanced tannins, oak and acidity and impressive freshness. This became even more obvious when we moved on to the Barbaresco flight where freshness is definitely an issue. The wines ranged from pine-y with rhubarb and green herb to cherry compote-like fruit with voluptuous texture and bulky tannins. Most were somewhere in between. The 2009 Roeri were, as a group, not terribly serious or particularly 'baby Barolo'-like but will represent delicious drinking over the short- to mid-term and there are some I'll be pursuing. (I haven't looked back at my notes from last year but I know I sure didn't write anything like that!
Notable wines:
2009 Fabrizio Battagliano Sergentin: nicely ripened, good cherry Neb nose, balanced. **+
2009 Angelo Negri Prachioso: oaky but also very well stuffed. Easy, rich, integrated. ***(-)
2009 Cornareia: who? Serious Neb nose with a ton of character, palate presence and verve. This was like baby Barolo. ***
2009 Mateo Correggia: serious intensity covers a lot of oak, spicy, very well balanced. ***
(?)Disappointment: 2009 Malvira: secondary in the bottle? Flawed.
2008 Roero Riserva
Interesting. These wines were not nearly as 'classical' or as severe as I'd imagined after tasting a lot of 2008 Barolo which are. More weight than I'd envisioned for sure and some showed a lot of oak and surprisingly ripe tannin. usually I think of Roero Riserva as a 'why bother?' category (why not buy Barolo or Barbaresco for the same amount of money?) but there were some good wines in this flight with some particularly good examples turning up at the end of the flight. Good showing here.
Notable wines:
2008 Cascina Chicco Valmaggiore Riserva: why am I not surprise? Good vineyard, good producer, good vintage. Juicy, big but pretty. ***
2008 Taliano Michele Roche dra Bassora: this was a surprise. Vinous, big, integrated, persistent and full of delicious cherry fruit. ***
2008 Angelo Negro Sudisfa: warm, cherry fruit that turned dry and leafy but still had nice complex flavors and a big finish. ***(-)
2008 Casetta: first bottle was corked but second, though oaky, had depth and liveliness. ***-
2008 Malvira Trinita: immaculate, even elegant. Best I've ever tasted from this property. ***
2008 casino Ca'Rossa Mompissano: distinctive for its sheer chunkiness and desnity. Big boy! ***
2008 Monchiero Carbone Printi: loaded w oak but it's Shiraz-like texture and aroma has definite appeal. ***-
The 2009 Vintage For Barbaresco
Riper, not as fresh overall as the Roero were, a definite surprise. In fact, most of the 2009 Barbaresco we tasted seemed blowzy and soft compared both with their own 2008 counterparts and the Roero from 2009. They are low in acid, soe show too much oak and alcohol and many lacked the 'freshness' Piemontese winemakers often cite as Nebbiolo's most important attribute. They do have their appeal, however. As drinks, many are lovely, with what I am now calling 'Cherries Jubilee' fruit flavors, some brown sugar and sort, pliable tannins. Are these 2009 Barbaresco zone wines going to be great keepers or 'important.' I don't think so. Will they be delicious with your roasts over the four to six years? Some. Here we're my favorites.
2009 Ca' du Rabaja Di Alutto Lorenzo Barbaresco DOCG: Is Lorenzo a madman? Undeniably. Is he a good winemaker? yep. Zingy with plenty of punch. **+
2009 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco DOCG: clean, elegant and lively. ***
2009 Olek Bondonio Barbaresco DOCG: a star in the making, Bondonio's spot in Roncagliette, over Gaja's Sori Tildin, is great as is this compact, old school Normale. **+
2009 La Ca' Nova Barbaresco Montestefano: juicy and stylish with Cherries Jubilee for dessert! ***(-)
2009 Cascina Morassino Barbaresco Ovello: Severe and serious, this one broods but shows hint of a great wine under all that iron oxide and Amerena cherry. ***
2009 Podere Colla Barbaresco Roncaglie: another good serious wine that will require patience. fresh, clean and precise. **+2009 Olek Bondonio Barbaresco Roncagliette: An earthy putty streak lies underneath its great Cherries Jubilee and strawberry-rhubarb notes. Needs time. ***(-)
2009 Cascina delle Rose Barbaresco Rio Sordo: a big, intense wine with a ton of persistence. ***
2009 Marchese Di Gresy Barbareco Martinenga: another fleshy but flashy wine from this great estate. ***-
2009 La Spinona Di Berutti Pietro Barbaresco Bricco Faset: oaky and ashy but still a stylish powerhouse that stood out from the pack. ***
2009 Ca' du Rabaja Barbaresco Rabaja: Oaky for sure but impressively deep and even flashy fruit and lively acidity make this one of my favorites. ***-
Can you believe the tractor? Ah, the romance of grape growing in Barbaresco.
The afternoons at Nebbiolo Prima are meant to be opportunities to visit wineries throughout the region. Some put on special affairs like Wednesday's much-anticipated vertical of Montezemolo and Rivetto while others just entertain individuals. Today's afternoon, though, featured 20 minute helicopter rides over the vineyards of, depending on the luck of the draw, either the Barbaresco and Roero villages or the Barolo zone. Brandon and I drew the latter and had the chance to see the stark differences in topography between the great amphitheaters of Barbaresco and Neive versus the more broad expanses on the other side of the Tanaro River that lead to the concentrated vineyard zones of the Roero, all from 1500 meters. The weather was perfect and my only regret is that it was over so fast! I can only imagine how much it costs to operate a helicopter and cycle through the 150 or so of us (actually fewer because there were more than a few people that said 'no way' to going up in one of those tiny choppers!) but a half hour each in both zones would have been perfect for me. I know that after Sunday's ground-level reconnoitering of the Barolo villages, it would have been cool for Brandon to see it all from above. Still, this was a new feature at Nebbiolo Prima and, for me anyway, well worth the investment.
This is a view of Barbaresco I took from the front seat of my chopper!
Dinner in Alba....Enoclub
There are at least several 'group' dinners at Nebbiolo Prima where the winemakers, buyers and journalists split up to attend. A third of us wound up at Enoclub, a great wine and food destination in Alba, in the Palazzo Savona. I wound up at a table in the far back of the cellar, a sort of claustrophobic spot that gave me the willies but thanks to the lovely company, Enzo Boglietti and his lovely wife and the owners of Le Ginestre, I made it through the rather typical Piemontese fare and odd assortment on wines. The best part of the evening was wandering the streets of Alba in search of bubbles to no avail only to wind up with a magnum of Ca' del Bosco Franciacorta at the little wine bar right next to Enoclub with Lorenzo Alutto, owner of Ca' du Rabaja who wound up buying the bottle for us! Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good......
Tuesday, May15
AM: 63 wines, Barbaresco 2009, Treiso, Neive
Barbaresco 2007 Riserva
Barolo 2008 Novello
An excruciating morning...the relatively mild, easy-to-drink 2009 Barbareschi from the Barbaresco village gave way to a confoundingly uneven set of wines from Treiso and Neive followed by a couple of dozen utterly perplexing 2007 Riservas from Barbaresco.
2009 Neive, Treiso, the generalities: we're dealing with a more structured, less overtly fruity set of wines here. Cherries Jubilee has given way to red currant and strawberry rhubarb-like fruit that, at least for now, often misses a mid-palate before giving way to some very young tannins. no shortage of oak here either but, at least, the density of fruit seems to be able to cover it. The wines clearly have good fruit. On the darker side of the ledger...the wines, as a group, lack backing acidity, show, sometimes, too much alcohol and are, for lack of a better word, actually rather bland. I used words like 'beef bouillon,' 'soy sauce,' 'stewed fruit' and 'balsamico' more than once. Too many times, I reckon. More flawed bottles too...fume-y chemical, sauerkraut, lactic acid and one that smelled just like a wet campfire site.
All that being said, I did find wines I liked and caution everyone, especially myself, that these are snapshots of a wine's evolution and the ultimate proof of the attributes of the 2009 vintage in Barbaresco will be when the finished wines grow up and hopefully out of this awkward stage.
2009 Ca' del Baio Barbaresco Valgrande, Treiso- I used this as the benchmark for the vintage against which to measure all the followers..jammy red fruit, toasty oak, nice intensity. ***?
2009 Ceretto Barbaresco Bricco Asili Bernadot- sweeter, obvious winemaking flavors but silky and textural. Easy to like and one of the least extreme. ***
2009 Abrigo Orlando Barbaresco Rocche Meruzzano, Treiso: lavishly oaked and packed w sweet fruit, this is the benchmark on steroids. ***
2009 Montaribaldi Barbareco Palazzina, Neive: oak, dark plummy fruit, broad and even with good intensity. ***-2009 Dante Rivetti Barbareco Bric Micca, Neive: another benchmark, good intense fruit, reasonable acidity, a bit of panache! **+
2009 Vigin Barbaresco Nonn Orlando, Cotta, Neive: lots of oak but still quite savory.
2009 Adriano Marco e Vittorio Barbaresco Basarin, Neive: ***-
Ok...there is no avoiding talking about the 2007 Barbaresco Riserva. In my many years of tasting at this event I have never encountered a more disjointed, disappointing set of wines than the 2007 Barbaresco Riserva. We spent a lot of time this evening discussing our theories (overripe ness combined with high pH and high humidity...blah,blah,blah) but the fact remains that some stellar names made some profoundly weird wines in 2007 and we wondered what the motivation was for even trying in this warm, low acid vintage. The faults were many and obvious: VA (I have a high tolerance for volatile acidity but not to this degree), too much oak (like aw-ay too much oak in some cases), muddy aromas and flavors and pushy acids and disjointed acids. The oddest thing at all is that the wines looked and tasted like they were far older than they were.
Ok...even odder was how consistent these flaws were across the board...of 16 wines in the flight, I found only three worth mentioning in a positive light. I haven't had the chance to talk with any winemakers yet who made Riserva in 2007 except Katia Rivetti at Dante Rivetti, but, of course, hers was one of the best. I did speak to several who didn't make a Riserva and it seems their restraint turned out to be the right choice.
Here are the exceptions to the disaster that was this flight:
2007 Dante Rivetti Barbaresco Riserva Bricco di Neive: visited here after the tasting an Katia was kind enough to offer excellent 1990, 1996, 1998, 2003 and 2006 Riservae. This 2007, while not quite up to those standards, was very, very good. Obvious oak but there's real substance here. Another keeper from a property that doesn't mess around. ***
2007 Roberto Sarotto Barbaresco Riserva Cura
2007 Roberto Sarotto Barbaresco Riserva Gaia Principe
I don't know this producer but he certainly got my attention....the former, a nicely balanced, fresh red with good color and a great nose was only surpassed by the same producer's Gaia-Principe, both from Neive. The end....I have nothing more to say on the subject other than I will be very surprised if these can age at all. I will not be subjecting any from this tasting on our customers without finding that I was very badly mistaken!
2008 Barolo
Much has already been written about the 2008 vintage in Barolo and it's interesting to get to the bottom of all the hype. Its reputation is as a 'terroir' vintage, one that emphasizes character over bombast and, I think based on what we tasted today, that much is true. But whether or not it can take its place among the most 'classic' vintages of the reason will take time to decide. I think the modern Barolo, even in a cooler, more structured vintage like 2008, has a riper veneer of fruit coating its tannins and those more elemental characteristics that show, say, a Vignarionda verus a Margheria are perhaps lost for good. Of course I am getting ahead of myself. What we are tasting today are certainly some excellent wines and a refreshing (literally) change from the softer, creamier renditions of Barolo from 2007 we tasted last year. This flight consists of wines of 8 wines from Novello.Three were worth remarking on:
2008 Elvio Cogno Barolo Ravera: red fruit, mint, orange marmalade. Yum! ***
2008 Giacomo Grimaldi Barolo Sotto Castello di Novello: lavish and well oaked. ***
2008 Le GinestreBarolo Sotto Castello di Novello: lower toned, soft and elegant. ***
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