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Back Linden Falls in Love with Barolo

Published on 2 December, 2019

© Linden Wilkie, 2nd December 2019

View from Castiglione Falletto

Earlier this month Alex and I got to share stories of our adventures in the land of Barolo and Barbaresco at a Piemontese-themed dinner at The Fine Wine Experience in Sai Ying Pun. Chef Gianni Caprioli and his team from Giando Restaurant cooked up a storm in our kitchen, as one mouth-watering dish after another came to our table.

Chef Gianni Caprioli

Reaching the zone, about a two hour drive, mostly south, from Milan’s Malpensa airport, takes you across plains of crops and industry until you reach Alba, home of the White Truffle Fair. If you love food and wine, you already have your excuse to visit before we even discuss the many reasons vinous to go. For a wine so famous around the world, Barolo is surprisingly small – just 1700 hectares (about the same as Burgundy’s Côte de Nuits). As Andrew Jefford put it poetically in Decanter, Barolo ‘lies in its own little bowl of hills’. Hairpin-turn roads link the villages that crest the hills, medieval castles on the horizon pop into view. Our Alfa Romeo rental was put through its paces (rent a manual / stick shift if you can drive one). Hopping between our winery appointments for the week was more fun for the driver than any wine region I’ve yet been.

Uovo Soffice su Crema di Topinambur e Tartufo Bianco

We were there in October, during harvest, a full month after seeing harvest in Burgundy. By morning the vine-swathed hillsides, have an enigmatic feel, draped in fog, or nebbia in Italian, and it’s from this that Barolo’s grape variety – Nebbiolo – gets its name. We stayed in the very heart of the zone, in the village of Castiglione Falletto, at Le Torri Hotel, simple, with a very nice breakfast, and an associated restaurant serving local classics, with a telephone directory-sized wine list at amazingly reasonable prices. If you visit, you must also say “hi” to Ezio, proprietor and great character at Cantina Communale, in the village, (where we enjoyed dinner enough to go back a second time), and go for the best antipasti-only lunch you’ll ever eat at La Terrazza di Renza (again, we did, twice). While you are there, go find local products, including rare old bottles of Barolo at Le Mura di San Rocco. I liked it so much in this little village of 705 inhabitants, found the people so warm and friendly, that it is hard to write about it without yearning to go back.

But! There is of course another reason to go – the wine! There are plenty of interesting, very local wines to try when you go, like the white Nascetta from the Barolo zone village of Novelo, or the bright and peppery light red Pelaverga from the zone’s village of Verduno (try Comm.G.B. Burlotto’s example). Alex carefully stuffed into her suitcase bottles of 2016 Vignetti Massa’s Timorasso ‘Derthona: Sterpi’ from Piemonte's Colli Tortonesi region. This is bold, fragrant, full and creamy, yet counterintuitively sharp and tangy white wine with great concentration (and know for ageing well). Massa brought the Timorasso grape back from the dead in the 1980s. It’s rare, a great experience, and has something of a cult following. We took the last two bottles from the Japanese-run café in Barbaresco called Koki Wine Bar – go for great stuff by the glass/Coravin, and a quick lunch on the go. (Everyone at our dinner event was invited to cast a vote for each of their favourite two wines. I count 31 votes. This wine received three).

Also making its way into Alex’s suitcase was 2015 Fortelo della Luja’s gorgeous late pick Moscato – Piasa Rischei Vendemmia Tardiva from the 1.1ha (yes!) DOC of Loazzalo, a 600m high vineyard south of Asti. A passito-rich nectar of dried orchard fruits, honey and nuts, this also has the intense tanginess required to carry it off. (1 vote). Great with Gianni’s selection of Piemontese cheeses.

But it is the reds for which people make the detour to the Langhe. Dolcetto, much loved by the locals, is today’s underdog, much being pulled out to make way for Nebbiolo’s greater cash return potential. It’s the victim of the region’s success in recent decades. But when you go, try it. It’s an easy, cheerful, welcome-my-friend drop that demands no attention of itself, but has a sweet/sour/bitter taste that makes finishing the bottle all too easy. It’s the default wine, the everyday every occasion wine. Drink it within 1-3 years of vintage. Barbera requires you to know a little more about the wine than that it was made from this variety. It can be made in a very fruity easy style, tank-ferment, short ageing, drink young style. It’s deep in colour, but – counterintuitively – it is naturally light in tannin. When you speak to people in the region about Barbera they immediately turn the conversation to food, and what they love to eat with it (duck ragù with pasta came up more than once). It is their gastronomic wine. There is another style of Barbera made here too, one that see a little more natural concentration (selected vineyards, lower yields, a bit more extraction) and longer ageing, in wood. At our dinner event we served three of the best of this sort. 2013 Cantina Bartolo Mascarello Barbera d’Alba is classic – as you would expect from this Barolo traditionalist – elegant, bright, fruity with a taut structure. It is pure – though not overly precise. It feels natural and harmonious, not pushed at all. It is aged in large Slavonian oak botti for 20-22 months, and the estate feels this is best drunk at 7-15 years of age. Try this one for a high grade straight down the line interpretation. In contrast 2010 Roberto Voerzio Barbera d’Alba Riserva ‘Vigneto Pozzo deel’Annunziata’ is deadly serious stuff. Bottled only in magnums from the king of low yields and meticulous site selection, this is modern (15 months in French oak barriques, 30% new), polished, intensely concentrated (though importantly, no over-extracted), rich, unctuous, svelte, with an intense dark cherry taste. It is unashamedly great, and unashamedly expensive (for the variety, not for the quality). Start here if you want to experience Barbera quality ne plus ultra. (3 votes). While the first two examples came from within the Barolo zone (where Nebbiolo usually takes the prime spots), our third example came from Monferrato, on the Asti side of Piemonte, from a Barbera specialist – perhaps the Barbera specialist. 2011 Braida Barbera d’Asti ‘Bricco dell’Uccellone’, also in magnum, had a wilder, spicier, more unctuous, chocolate-edged and extroverted expression. If Voerzio took Barbera to make Michaelangelo’s David, Braida is more Jack Black in School of Rock. It depends on your mood, both are awesome. (4 votes).

Marchesi di Gresy

In Barolo, the modernist versus traditionalist debate of the 1970s-1990s was concluded. Everybody won. That there were a few well-to-do families making Barolo in the ‘70s masks the fact that the region itself was quite poor. Growers/producers with great vineyard sites struggled economically. It’s easy to lose sight of that today, in the wake of a sustained boom. Young producers with progressive – indeed radical – ideas sought to tip the region on its head, make Barolo with international market appeal, and deliver economic success. (See the documentary film Barolo Boys). These modernists succeeded not only for themselves. The best of the traditionalists – without abandoning their use of large Slavonian oak botti, and without introducing French oak – upped their game nonetheless. And when you visit the region today, you find that many producers fall somewhere in the middle, varying their approach to fermentation, extraction, ageing depending on the vintage, the vineyard and the style they are looking for. Steel tanks, cement, large botti, small botti, French oak, French oak demi-muids and other formats, amphorae… have all become tools, perhaps more choices to make down some ideological divide between tradition and progress.

Giuseppe Cortese, Rabaja vineyard

2008 Elio Altare Barolo ‘Vigneto Arborina’ from La Morra was our first Barolo for this night. Altare is one of my favourite people in the world of wine, a charming intellect and talker, so sharp was the rift between him and his father in the ‘80s over Elio’s taking to the botti with a chainsaw and replacing everything with barrique that he was disowned by his father and then disinherited. (He managed to buy back his beloved Arborina from his siblings). A classic vintage helps display Alare’s gift for equilibrium, elegance. This is fragrant and refined, youthful still but open and ready to enjoy. 2008 Poderi Aldo Conterno Barolo Bussia Riserva ‘Gran Bussia’ from Monforte d’Alba, a selection from Conterno’s best three sites within Bussia, with 30 months age in botti and 9 years in bottle before release to market, this is one of the icons of the more traditional approach. It is grander, concentratred and naturally powerful, aromatic, with very fine-grained tannin. I would cellar this more, but you needn’t. (4 votes). 2004 Giuseppe Mascarello Barolo ‘Monprivato’ from Castiglione Falletto, is straight traditionalist in approach. From the southwest-facing Monprivato vineyard there is something about the very distinct terroir expression of this wine (I once organised a vertical back to the early ‘70s and it is consistently there) that I really like – it is particularly fragrant. A reference wine in the classic vintage. (3 votes).

Giulia Negri, Serradenari

The Scavino family have been making estate-bottled wines in Castiglione Falletto since the 1920s. The family split into two branches decades ago, sharing between them one of the region’s most famous vineyards – Bric del Fiasc (as it’s known at Paolo Scavino) / Bricco Fiasco (as it’s known at Azelia). While visiting Azelia, 7th generation Lorenzo Scavino showed us the single cask their flagship Riserva, aged 30 months in botti, and offered to market on its 10th birthday, and only in exceptional vintages, from a super steep and windy Serralunga d’Alba vineyard, and this evening we shared two examples – 2004 and 2001 Az. Ag. Azelia Barolo Riserva ‘Voghera Brea’, both offering great concentration, power, balance, the ’01 seeming a touch darker and spicier, the ’04 a touch more elegant and fresh-fragrant. (2001 – 1 vote). In a big contrast not so much in style, but terroir, the 2001 Paolo Scavino Barolo Riserva ‘Rocche dell’Annunziata’ from La Morra had a more high-register expression, elegant weight, fragrant. (2 votes). The 2001 Luciano Sandrone Barolo ‘Cannubi Boschis’ showed more concentration, tannin, a more brooding and powerful style, with notes of dark chocolate. (1 vote). 

The final red flight was the most popular of the dinner. Two star producers, yes, but I would make the case here too that while I think you can today enjoy young Barolo, the right bottle with 20+ years of cellaring can deliver an extra level of magic (as is true in most fine wine regions). The 1995 Bruno Giacosa Barolo Falletto di Serralunga d’Alba, despite coming from a Barolo zone we associate more with power, was all about fragrance and refinement – elegance, complexity, tar and rosehips, and almost silky length. (5 votes). The 1997 Gaja Sperss Langhe​ showed Angelo Gaja’s very different approach – this is darker, richer, glossier, more oaky, yet with beautifully rounded edges, supple generous mid-palate fruit, more flesh, more flash. (5 votes). (NB – from the 2013 vintage the ‘Barolo’ designation for this Surralunga wine is back on the label). 

Why do I find all of this so appealing? Firstly I can’t (and why should I?) extricate the wine from the region. It’s beautiful, its cultured, the people are friendly and welcoming, the food is fabulous, and you needn’t spend a lot of money to enjoy it all. It’s also small. I should mention that the neighbouring Barbaresco zone (if Barolo is the size of the Cote de Nuit +/-, Barbaresco is not much bigger than Gevrey-Chambertin). You can zip in your car between visits on both sides in much the same way as you might zip between the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune.

At Vietti

As a whole, the wines are a really unique expression of grape and place, they have character. It’s a more powerful wine style – alcohol is almost always going to be 14%+, and Barolo/Barbaresco has tannin, but tannins today are well managed, and quality has become more consistent. The secret weapon here though is naturally high acidity that seems to assure a sense of balance that isn’t always evident in wines with this level of boldness. And, as you explore the region, you see that there is a satisfying level of diversity coming from the different parts of Barolo/Barbaresco, differences in soil, differences in altitude, orientation, and so on. It comes through in the wines.

Chef Gianni Caprioli and his team from Giando Restaurant

Many thanks to all the Piemontese people who took care of us so warmly on our visit, to Chef Gianni and his team who cooked such a beautiful dinner at The Fine Wine Experience, and to all those who shared the evening around the table with us. Do try some of the wines in our selection in stock, and I hope we might tempt you to come share some more Piemontese fine wine experiences with us in 2020.