The Wines of Barolo and Barbaresco

In the northwest corner of Italy, surrounded on three sides by the mountains of the Alps, lies one of the world's great wine and food regions. In Italian, Piemonte can literally be translated as at the foot of the mountains. Famous for its mushrooms, cheese, and its pasta, the food in Piedmont takes a richer and earthier form than foods from farther south. Several white grape varieties, including Arnese, Cortese, and Moscato, are widely grown throughout the region, with Moscato being best known for the Spumante wines of Osti. The red grapes include Barbera and Dolcetto, but the most famous grape is Nebbiolo. Nebbiolo, in spite of the look that it looks like a little grape with very thin skin, is very powerful when it gets to be in the glass. The skin is very thin and it's very tannic, and it's one of the elements that gives the characteristics to the wines. First one to break in the spring, last one to be picked in the fall. That's why traditionally it's planted in the warmest vineyards that look to the south, so they get more sun and drier conditions. In this area you have some fogs. The name of fog in Italian is nebbia, and people think that the name of the grape, the name of Nebbiolo, is coming from this characteristic. So generically speaking, talking about the nose and the smell and the look of Nebbiolo, you would say that it's quite light in color, ruby, I would say, if I have to use an adjective. On the nose it's very delicate, like rose petals, flowers. The Nebbiolo grape finds its ultimate expression in Barolo and Barbaresco. The principal city of Alba is situated in the north center of the Lange region, with the relatively small area of Barolo to its southwest, and even smaller Barbaresco to its northeast. These two regions use the same grape, but with different topography, aging requirements, and soil, they produce subtly different wines. So the main difference between Barolo and Barbaresco comes from the soil. The soil of Barbaresco is slightly richer in nutrients, in fertility, than the soil in Barolo. Both wines are extremely complex in the nose, both wines are extremely long and complex in the finish, but the middle palate of Barolo is fuller, and the middle palate of Barbaresco is somehow brighter, lighter, a little more ethereal. Back in the days, 100 years ago, they were saying that Barolo was the wine of the kings, and Barbaresco was the wine of the queens. Barbaresco has a minimum aging requirement of two years, while Barolo requires three. The Reserva designation demands an additional two years for both appellations. Barbaresco was not on the map until 1894. They started to make wine in a proper way, in a Barolo style, and they started to market it as an alternative to Barolo, slightly lighter, a little easier, a little more delicate. After the Second World War, when the economy was starting to start again, the Gaia family really started to focus and develop the Barbaresco name, and that's when, in 1958, the Produttori was founded with the goal of bringing Barbaresco to the place that it deserved. While most producers release a Barbaresco blended from vineyards throughout the appellation, single vineyard bottlings from exceptional sites are increasingly common and demand a premium in the market. In the very beginning, Barolo was very different to what it is now. Usually the Barolo we are talking about in those centuries was a sweet wine and a sparking wine. The wine we know as Barolo today is actually a very recent invention, both in its style and in its name. The mid-1800s started with the help of the Marquise of Barolo and Count Camillo Benso di Cavour Barolo. Today, Barolo consists of five major communes. Vineyards and townships of La Mura and Barolo are known for their calcareous marl soils from the Tortonian era, and the corresponding wines are often described as aromatic and elegant in style. In contrast, Cerralunga d'Alba, Castaleone Folletto, and Manforte d'Alba lie on older Helvetian sandstone, resulting in more structured and slow-maturing wines. We usually say that you can cut the region in two halves. So I'm in the northern part where the soil, you can say, is slightly younger, means sandier soil, softer soil, and usually what they say, softer soil means softer tannins, smoother wines, more feminine, more approachable, more elegant. The other half of the region, so the southern part, and I want to say villages like Castaleone Folletto or Cerralunga, the soil is slightly older, and we're talking about more limestone, sandstone. As a result, the wine ends up being a little bit more muscly, a little bit more spicy, a little bit more structured than the northern side of the Appalachian. Inspired by the prestige and prices accorded to the Grand Cru wines in Burgundy, France, Barolo producers began a push for the great vineyards to be classified according to quality. So talking about the Cruz, so the single vineyards, we don't have such a distinctive classification of vineyards like you do have in Burgundy. So what happened in the past, and I'm not talking about a thousand years ago, but let's just go back to the 50s and the 60s, they would just plant the vineyards. There was no interest in showing the single vineyards or the single characteristics of each vineyard. The late 1970s and early 80s brought about another change. If you came here in the 50s and the 60s, my grandpa would have told you, oh, buy a bottle of Barolo, but drink it in 25 years. Thank you. Maybe I want to drink it tomorrow. The Barolo as a wine is not an easy wine, especially in the very beginning, because of tannins. Barolo was made for hundreds of years the same way. And then at some point, some crazy winemakers, and I include my dad, Elio, early 80s, late 70s, he was one of the first to start approaching to winemaking with different techniques. And that's when the modern winemaking started happening. Roughly, people have labeled these two views about traditionalist on one side and modernist on another side. So the idea with the modernist winemaking was to make more approachable wines. Everybody does green harvest, everybody's organic, so there's not really a big difference in the vineyards. Cellar, that's where we're talking about differences. Modernista, modernist, short maceration. For Altare, we're talking about five days on the skins for Barolo. Tradizionalista, they'll tell you, they'll talk about weeks. They have started to introduce the small oak, the barrique for aging. This has created a very big conflict between those two philosophies. To make space in the cellar for Barolo, he had to buy a chainsaw as well to cut the big botti in pieces. So he was cutting in pieces this botti that one of his ancestors had built. You know, those botti were 100 years old. The oak itself adds tannin, so that's why usually this combination of short macerations and a small oak. Because with longer macerations, you are taking more tannins from the grapes. 25 years ago, it was a huge fight. In this moment, it is not black or white like in that period. It's kind of hard today to put a strict line to distinguish the styles because today the styles are melting and mixing. Now, if a wine is good, it's really good. No one cares how it was made. Piedmont is now a hub of Italian food and wine culture. With increasing gastronomic tourism and critical acclaim, prices and notoriety of the region's wines are on the rise. Today, whether traditional, modern, or somewhere in between, the wines of Barolo and Barbaresco indisputably stand among the great wines of the world. The Guild of Sommeliers is a non-profit membership organization for wine professionals. To join our online community, visit us on the web at guildsomm.com.