Piedmont Trip Report - long as hell but worth it!

I don't purchase their (La spinetta) Barolo or Barbaresco, as it's more than I want to spend.

Which is very much the crux of the matter for me, rather than any matter of trad vs mod ideology. They're good but not that good

I do remain a fan of their Moscato d'Asti wines and they're not priced at a significant premium. For me they're fine value.

Ian,

completely agree. Their big reds don't work for me at all, but the Moscato is still one of the great examples of its type.

I like the Ca' d'Pian (sp?) too

Oswaldo, I`ll spend a wonderful time reading this!

unbelievable post!

regards!

I
Mark, your point about the difficulty of drinking well in Piedmont was on my mind too. By the middle of the trip, I was composing a rant about a sort of structural difficulty, experienced last year in Burgundy as well: at wineries, the top wines are, as you say, too young to be enjoyable; at restaurants, the top wines are either too young or too expensive or duds, the sweet spots on the list having already been cherry picked. But then I had the terrific experience at Cappellano and my rant just melted away... I kept thinking that I had to order Barbera or Dolcetto, but just couldn't let go of the idea that this was a golden opportunity to drink older Barolo at restaurants.

Oswaldo,

did you really not find any good older Barolo for sale in restaurants at fair prices? There are a number of places where this should still be possible; just to name one, the excellent Locanda dell'Arco in Cissone has a deep cellar that included wines back to the 80's at least the last time I was there (the proprietor is very knowlegeable). The old-line stalwarts like Belvedere in La Morra, da Felicin in Monforte should still be strong...

I love drinking really good Dolcetto with Piedmontese cooking, but that's another story.

did you really not find any good older Barolo for sale in restaurants at fair prices?

That is correct. From what you wrote, perhaps it was a mistake to have almost all our dinners in Alba, but the wine lists there were mostly from 1999 onwards, with only a few scattered bottles from before. When Maria Teresa Mascarello said that her father used to complain that local restaurants sold young Barolos as if they were beer, I totally undertsood.
I was looking for 1995, 1996 or 1997 because the first half of the decade was dicey, and there were very few of those. I saw some 1993s that I could have pounced on, but didn't feel secure enough to do so, since it is a better vintage than its neighbors, but not a stellar one. It was a bit frustrating...

[David M. Bueker]

A comment about buying older wine. I am not sure if this is just related to the "big city", but when I was last in Torino (July 2008) there were many shops with great stocks of rare and treasured Barolo that were stored at outrageous temperatures. I was in the "basement" of a shop sweating my glands off in front of Giacosa red labels and various other things of great worth.

Sad.

Oswaldo,

IMO most of the best restaurants in the Langhe are outside of Alba, some of them in tiny places like Cissone or Priocca (Italians seem much more ready to drive for even 30 minutes or more to get to a decent spot than we are). I will be talking to Sergio Germano later on today and I will ask him for his recommendations, but I am pretty confident that you will find plenty of good older wine next time you are over there. Il Centro in Priocca has a stupendous cellar, if I recall correctly; 'da Renzo' near Bra...

I had dinner a year ago or so at Arco with Gianluca Grasso and we drank '89 Casa Maté that his dad made, cellared the whole time in the restaurant.

A comment about buying older wine. I am not sure if this is just related to the "big city", but when I was last in Torino (July 2008) there were many shops with great stocks of rare and treasured Barolo that were stored at outrageous temperatures. I was in the "basement" of a shop sweating my glands off in front of Giacosa red labels and various other things of great worth.

Sad.

I suspect that would be Casa del Barolo on the (rare) diagonal street via Andrea Dora. Nice shop, but negligent conditions to keep wine in.

A comment about buying older wine. I am not sure if this is just related to the "big city", but when I was last in Torino (July 2008) there were many shops with great stocks of rare and treasured Barolo that were stored at outrageous temperatures. I was in the "basement" of a shop sweating my glands off in front of Giacosa red labels and various other things of great worth.

Sad.

I suspect that would be Casa del Barolo on the (rare) diagonal street via Andrea Dora. Nice shop, but negligent conditions to keep wine in.

We saw, we entered, we left. For a shop with that name, disappointigly few Barolos, almost all from recent vintages.

[David M. Bueker]

A comment about buying older wine. I am not sure if this is just related to the "big city", but when I was last in Torino (July 2008) there were many shops with great stocks of rare and treasured Barolo that were stored at outrageous temperatures. I was in the "basement" of a shop sweating my glands off in front of Giacosa red labels and various other things of great worth.

Sad.

I suspect that would be Casa del Barolo on the (rare) diagonal street via Andrea Dora. Nice shop, but negligent conditions to keep wine in.

We saw, we entered, we left. For a shop with that name, disappointingly few Barolos, almost all from recent vintages.

That was the one, but it was not the only one with deplorable conditions.

That was the one, but it was not the only one with deplorable conditions.

Agreed

I also forgot to back up Oswaldo's comments about Barolo wine shops, which I also found expensive and touristy (somewhat interchangeable those words). Alba however, was much better and a great source of the Produttori del Barbaresco cru wines (amongst others) at competitive prices.

regards

Ian

Quick question Oswaldo- Is planting Cabernet Sauvignon in the Napa Valley cheating?
What is so dishonest about using ”banked” yeast that was isolated and selected naturally from a vineyard in Piedmont, Italy?

Salute

deleted by author - comment not relevant

Victor, thanks for the info. I imagine the name BRL just stands for Barolo, rather than some amino acid abbreviation. This yeast raised three questions for me, one practical, two rhetorical: is it what people call neutral, or does it have a flavor dimension (if so, obviously one connected to Piedmont)? If it's neutral, then what would be the point? But if it imparts a Piemontese Barolo flavor, wouldn't it be "dishonest" (from a natural wine point of view, however one defines that) to use it anywhere else? People in Piedmont can probably get away with using it without being accused of being unnatural, but someone like Roagna would frown on even that practice, since his whole differentiation gambit (and it may, or may not, be more than that) is based on only using yeasts from vineyard X to make wine from vineyard X. Not to mention that the use of this strain raises the same issues as clonale selection, a kind of eugenics that makes wines more homogeneous and less truly indigenous.

I don't believe that most producers know which organisms perform the fermentation, ie whether they come from the vineyard, the winery, or the environment (the air over a Barolo village in October must be thick with different yeasts).

Quick question Oswaldo- Is planting Cabernet Sauvignon in the Napa Valley cheating?
What is so dishonest about using ”banked” yeast that was isolated and selected naturally from a vineyard in Piedmont, Italy?

Salute

My point is (and it's hardly new) that if you want to express the terroir of a place, you should not use yeasts from some other place. If you plant Cabernet Sauvignon in the Napa Valley you should use Napa Valley yeasts. Ditto for Nebbiolo. It's not so much a question of cheating, but of being "dishonest" with respect to a concept (terroir).

If the purchased yeast is neutral, it doesn't go as much against the concept of terroir, but it is still less consistent than using indigenous.

Like vines we’re dealing with “living” things. The yeast is going to interact with crushed fruit from someplace else. Yeasts aren’t as “predictable” as you think. Some yeast strains, which are considered “neutral”, in some conditions (depending upon things like pH, nutrients, fermentation temperatures, rate of fermentation, ripeness level of the fruit, etc) can produce wines with a very pleasant varietal aromatic profile. The companies who bank the yeast only give guidelines and suggestions. As far as “predicting” exactly how a yeast strain will react and behave in a given must or juice, I think they got everyone more or less “scratching their head”.

Salute

Whilst I very much agree with the principle that Oswaldo supports - i.e. if we believe in 'terroir', then this is one facet of it. We'll all have varying degrees of desire for terroir to be expressed. I think we've got some variation in views here, but certainly not world's apart. Personally it's not something that's bothered me much if at all, but I do still recognise it's a factor in expressing terroir.

I'll also recognise though, that not all ambient yeasts are as local as we might think - with cultured yeasts, once present in a winery, capable of going feral and displacing an original strain(s) of yeast.

regards

Ian

Ian wrote;
I'll also recognise though, that not all ambient yeasts are as local as we might think - with cultured yeasts, once present in a winery, capable of going feral and displacing an original strain(s) of yeast.

Good point Ian. So years ago it was OK to displace yeast unknowingly (on the soles of ones shoes let’s say, or by using the pomace as compost in the vineyard). But to buy naturally banked yeast in dried or liquid form is out of the question? By going feral wouldn’t that mean it now becomes part of the “terrior”?

Salute

Victor
I understand that often 'gone feral' yeast, is (most?) common where wineries used to used cultured yeasts, decided to move to ambient, but with a high chance that it's just the same strain of yeast! Caveat: I'm not a winemaker, so please apply salt liberally when reading my comments

regards

Ian

Great report! Thanks! I am happy you liked the Massolino I enthused about; yet I am sorry you didn't get a very good welcome at the winery. From the tasting we had with Franco in Finland, I expected better.

I just talked to Sergio Germano, and his recommendations for interesting Langa winelists were (in no particular order)

La Libera, Alba
Il Centro, Priocca
Ristorant Bovio, La Morra (the old proprietor of Belvedere)
Le Torri, Castiglione Falleto

Had more time to read, very enjoyable!
Enjoyed the chart, too. So more people use ambient yeast than were rumored.

I was looking for 1995, 1996 or 1997 because the first half of the decade was dicey, and there were very few of those. I saw some 1993s that I could have pounced on, but didn't feel secure enough to do so, since it is a better vintage than its neighbors, but not a stellar one. It was a bit frustrating...

From the right makers, I think '93 is the best drinking vintage post-1990 right now.

In the questionnaire, the answer from Luciano Sandrone about how much total S02 they like to see at the time of bottling shows as the amount they add at bottling time, obviously different. So I wrote for clarification and got a very nice email back, saying the following, which basically puts him on the low side, compared to the others (as far as g/ml totals at time of bottling):

L’obbiettivo è: al momento dell’imbottigliamento avere circa 15/20 mg/l so2 libera. Questo comporta poi in bottiglia avere un valore 40/50/60 mg/l SO2 totale.

The objective is to have at the moment of bottling circa 15/20 mg/l SO2 “free.” That corresponds to having in the bottle circa 40/50/60 mg/l SO2 “total.”