Barolo, according to some connoisseurs, the best and most famous red wine of Italy, is one of many to claim the title “Wine of kings, and king of wines”. The first wine to claim such a title was Commandaria of Cyprus in the 13th century, followed by Tokaji from Hungary much later.
Barolo’s stylistic origin began in mid 1800’s when French oenologist Louis Oudart was commissioned by Count Cavour to create a dry red wine from nebbiolo. Up to that time, Barolo was a sweet wine because of climatic changes during the months of November and December. The fermentation simply stopped – it got too cold for yeasts to perform.
Barolo must be produced exclusively from the nebbiolo grape, which there are two other sub-species. The grape thrives best in and around the towns of Barolo, La Morra, Castigilione Faletto, Serralunga d’Alba, and Montforte d’Alba.
Lombardy to the east of Piedmont grows some nebbiolo, but wines don’t even come close to those of Barolo.
Barbaresco, only 15 km west as the crow flies, also produces a nebbiolo-based wine called Barbaresco, but it fails in most cases to rival Barolo from a taste and aging perspective.
Barolo, at its best, is always a concentrated, intense, and heady wine with pronounced tannins and acidity but significant stylistic differences among various wines of the zone exist and continue to evolve.
In the past, Barolo required long barrel and bottle aging to become softer, and accessible. Fermentation, and soaking were long extracting high amounts of tannins. Much of the press wine was also added to the final blend for colour, extract, texture and more tannins to prolong shelf life.
These days, consumers want wines to consume within a few years, if not upon purchase. Winemakers shorten soaking and fermentation, and blend very little, if any, of the press wine, thus rendering the final blend more accessible and sooner.
Young revolutionary winemakers like Ceretto, Renato Ratti, Paolo Cordero di Montezomolo and others reduce fermentation time and use barriques (small 225 litre capacity French oak barrels) instead of huge 6000 litre and up capacity Slovenian “botte”.
Their wines are ready to consume much sooner than those of traditionalists like Bartolo Mascarello and others. To my palate, “traditional” Barolos express the terroir better.
Modern Barolos are exquisite, refined wines designed for modern rich people, who do not have the patience and want to consume for the sake of consumption and to brag.
Ceretto, Marchese de Gressy, Paolo Cordero de Montezomolo produce wines from low yielding and old vines; with substantial power, intensity and flavour.
These days, Barolo may be produced from 1279 hectares of vineyards with an average of ten million bottles per annum. It is a relatively expensive wine, but could be offered for much less to encourage wider consumption.
O late Barolo producers have started marketing single vineyard wines a la Bourgogne. Italians call single vineyard wines “cru”.
The best known single vineyards are Rocche and Ceroquio in the town of La Morra; Cannubi, Sarmazza, and Brunate in Barolo; Rocche (part of it), Villero and Monprivato in Castiglione Falletto; Bussia, Ginestra and Sant Stefano di Perno in Monforte d’Alba; Lazarito and Vigna Rionda in Serralunge d’Alba.
Serralunga soils are high in sand and limestone, iron, phosphorus and potassium. Serralunga wines require long aging.
In the towns of Barolo, and La Morra soils are composed on clay, manganese, and magnesium oxide yielding less tannic wines, which need to be aged less than those from Serralunga.
In Piedmont, and generally in Italy, wineries prefer to grow their own grapes, but there are also negociants as in Burgundy and Bordeaux who buy grapes and/or finished wine to age, blend and bottle. These wines bear the characteristics of Barolo in general and are perfectly serviceable, but always never memorable.
A typical Barolo is ruby to garnet in colour changing to brick red with orange hues when properly aged, smells of leather, liquorice, mint, mulberries, plums, spices, strawberries, tobacco, white truffles, and herbs.
According to D O C G regulations Barolos must be aged for a minimum of two years in barrel and two more in bottle.
Medium strength Barolos tend to oxidize in four years and may disappoint first time consumers expecting fruit forward wines.
In Piedmont vintages matter, and must be considered when making purchasing decisions.
The best vintages in the last two decades were 1989, 1990, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005, and 2006.
The best producers are: Marengo, Bartolo Mascarello, Ceretto, Paolo Conterno di Montezomolo, Marchesi di Gresy, Marchesi di Barolo, G. Ascheri, Elio Altare, G. Borgogno e Figli, Luigi Einaudi, Roberto Voerzio, Fratelli Ravello, G. Manzone, S. Grassa, Aldo Conterno, Pio Cesare, Conterno Fantino, Mosconi, and Bruno Giacosa.
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Post writer – Hrayr Berberoglu – E-mail – Read his books?
Professor B offers seminars to companies and interested parties on any category of wine, chocolates, chocolates and wine, olive oils, vinegars and dressings, at a reasonable cost.
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