My trip to barolo

Before I head off to Italy on Thursday I wanted to post something I wrote during my last trip to Barolo during January.

The day started with a little sleeping in only to wake up to a dreary rain. We headed off up the la morra hill swinging by annunziata to renatto ratti. They were not able to receive us so we continued up the hill to la morra where we parked and took in the limited view during the raging snow storm. We walked around la morra a bit and hit the enoteca where we sampled a dolcetto and barolo to get the palates warmed up for the day. The alleyways in these hilltop castle based towns are beautiful. You really can get a sense of the slower pace of life here. Alba is a busy place but when your in the communes you feel a million miles away. I had sent emails over the weekend to manzone, cavallotto and sandrone and as we walked around la morra I received confirmation from manzone and cavallotto for 1 and 3 o'clock appts respectively. We still had some time to burn so we scooted down the hill to barolo where we stopped by the castle that houses the enoteca. Unfortunately it was closed until the 31st, a common theme of our time here. We had snagged two pizzas to go the night before at this old italian couples joint and we brought them along for a cold lunch. We headed across into the serallunga valley for our first stop in monforte. The snow was absolutely dumping, something the wine makers had indicated hadn't happened with the type of regularity It had been in a long time. ( There was over 7 feet in sestriere where I was competing) we ducked inside a little coffee-bar slash enoteca on the side of the road to take refuge. The walls were lined with bottles of wine with a great cappucino bar set to the side on one wall. I ordered a glass of barolo for 4 euro while I parused the list, with a 5 dollar increase in price for drinking the wines there. Back dated vintages to 1990, strong producers across the board, and ohhh the prices.....mostly below us cost. I glanced up to the wall and saw a label that calls to me, luciano sandrone cannubi boschis....I looked to the list....1999-80 euro, 2000-80 euros, 2001-80 euros, 2003-80 euros.....could it be I asked myself, I quickly snapped to the 2004 section and my eyes got as wide as a building. The girls were watching me seeing me barely able to contain my excitement, both made funny comments about me being a kid in a candy shop. There it was sandrone cannubi 2004 80 euros, appx 95 to 100 bucks. This wine costs over 200 in the states, with high end estimates at 500 a bottle. I asked the owner how many he had. He brought out a 6 pack. I took 4 because that was all I could get home as I already travel with a couple hundred pounds of luggage. I snagged the wood box too. With my wine-gasming complete we headed back into the wintry mess to make our way to manzone.

I pulled into the manzone estate and waited for a few minutes as we were a bit early. Mauro manzone, giovannis 23 year old son who has been in oenology school since the age of 14 greeted us. It was nice to hang with him, his english was great and I could relate to his youthful passion and exuberance. I think annie and kimber liked it as well. There was no pressure on them, we were hanging with a family. Giovanni who speaks no english made us feel as welcome as he could while mauro prepared the room. Immediately they gave us photo albums showing the generations of family, including giovanni as a kid. They explained the difference in piemonte before 1980, how it wasn't always about wine and for that matter nebbiolo. Barbera and dolcetto were the major players before that. In translation giovanni explained how grateful he was for the change as it seemed to have transformed him from a very poor man to a wealthy man. The one thing I noticed was the dirt under his fingers, it made me smile on the inside. We got down to the wines with mauro starting us on the way with a dolcetto. It was a very basic rendition as almost all are with wonderful inner sweetness and purity. These are great for basic foods...you know, lunch time wines. Next we moved on to the barbera 2006 la serra. This is a single vineyard wine with a great pure core of sweetness, clean barbera acid and a little tannic structure to back it all up. Again a wine to drink at any moment of the day. The barolo showed well in a similar vein of purity and accesibility with the most interesting wine being one that is not imported anywhere. The langhe rosserto 2007 was a beautiful white wine made of an indigenous variety whose name escapes me. This was serious white wine with length structure and the ability to age.

Mauro took us downstairs through the blizzard to the new area of the winery that was under construction. It was beautiful. We shot down underground to the barrel room and their new callar carved into the ground. At one end was a cave filled with water a little surprise they found while digging. Now they have a cave wine cellar that's almost 120 feet long with a underground pond at one end, pretty cool! Manzone is using about 30 percent new oak in the barolos and more in some of the more basic wines. So these guys are tweeners, a little modern and a little traditional. Both manzones were adamant about expressing their terroir and making wines of purity and accessibility and place. Mauro also loved the aspect of small producers and their stories and indicated he hoped to go to napa to visit some small producers that I think reminded him of himself. At every step of the way mauro indicated the his care and attention to detail in his wines. He even let the girls label some wines as they were begining to bottle. As we left we purchased some wines for our next two weeks in austria and germany as the selection can be a little rough. I then tried the 2004 gramolere, a wine that had been opened for 10 days, not a sign of oxidation. Amazing, beautiful and complex...still. Mauro commented that with barolo the longer it stays open the more ageable they tend to be as a rough rule....something giuseppe cavallotto remarked on later. Giuseppe would later comment that there are barolos out there that are made to be amazing aromatically in the first half hour, after which they quickly fall apart. Something I have experienced with joe on some bottles of cascina luisin. He says they do this because of the critics...back to manzone....across the board these are fresh pure ripe wines and I think they are great wines to get people into barolo as they are accessible yet true to barolo and their place. We left with a gracie mille and I autographed my skeleton card, as did the girls which excited mauro. I left him my contact as he said he will be doing some traveling to new york soon. I told him I would welcome him if possible and if all else failed hopefully see him at the skurnik tasting in new york. Mauro is the new face of his family, 23 years old, fluent in english, educated in the modern wine world, including business. A stark contrast to his fathers poor begininngs. I'm sure giovanni is very proud of his well spoken son as he is a wonderful ambassador for the winery. This seems to be a theme in piemonte. Its about family and I prefer that to the corporate styled places.

Off to cavallotto heading down greasy piemonte swtichbacks toward castiglione falletto. We pulled into cavallotto 15 minutes late where giuseppe quickly escorted us inside. An older generation than mauro, giuseppe was a bit worn by work looking as if he had just came in from the vineyards. With his work sweater and winter tuque. Intensely humble and soft spoken he escorted us to the cellars to look at their barrels. All slovenian botti of different sizes...no new oak here. Cavallotto clings to the traditional style. I immediately engaged giuseppe asking him fairly intricate questions about vineyard locations and why they are where they are, why dolcetto is planted here and barbera there,indicating my love and passion for all wines In piemonte.We Talked about the botti and why he likes to use them and how he plans to integrate the new botti to maintain consistency in his wines.. I wanted giuseppe to know I share a love for his passion so that he did not hold anything back. Over the course of 3 hours we sat and talked. His unique perspective as one of the few remaining true traditionalists came through. I told him immediately about my deal on the sandrone which he recognized and said it was a great find. He also stated that this modernist made the best wine in barolo. As soon as he indicated he had room in his world for two kinds of barolo I explained to him that I love nebbiolo no matter the method as long as the wines were balanced. He indicated that many modern nebbiolos are great to drink in their early life but said he did not think they age well. he stated that the oak seems to fall away and the wines end up unbalanced if not drank early, something that aligns with my experience with these modernists. He acknowledged that when young these wines are great. I told giuseppe that I buy and enjoy both. The modernists I will drink young, as I am patient for the traditionalists in my cellar. As we talked more about traditional barolo, Giuseppe highlighted the importance of a lack of oxygen in the process of making nebbiolo due to the ease of oxidation with this variety and said that many of the 2000s are oxidized at this point. A unique thing about cavallotto is that all the grapes are on site so they rarely sit out for long. He noted that in hot vintages getting the nebbiolo in quick enough is a big challenge. Because of the thin skins any punctures or lag time to the cellar can start a fermentation, which is a big problem. Producing nebbiolo is a very oxygen free process which is not true of all wines in the world. He didn't seem to care for the hot vintages much. Over and over giuseppe said you need to know the producer you need to know the method...he hammered this point down as the only way to know what a bottle of barolo will do. He explained that the hottest vintage was 03, I told him I did not care for these as they are very hard, I did tell him that one of the only 03s I've liked is the monprivato from mascarello. I could literally see the monprivato vineyard from the tasting room, a unique surprise given that I had brought it up without knowing where it was. It lies next to cavallottos vignolo vineyard. Giuseppe began to explain to me that in the west side of barolo there is a lot of sand which creates a problem in hot vintages as it bakes the wines and forces their hand to harvest too soon. He continued, on the east side of barolo there is more clay in the soil, this helps cool with vines because it creates an ability to humidify the vines with the water it holds. Boschis is around 70 percent clay while vignolo is like monprivato with even more clay. He said it made sense that the 03 monprivato drank so well. He indicated that 00 was a warm vintage as well but not as warm as 03 and also included 01 in the warm camp. He said in the warm vintages you must know the producer. He gave 04 a pass and said everyone made good wine in 04 it was so consistent with a touch of rain before harvest which freshened the wines. He indicated 05 wasn't great but good and that the wines have good aromatics but he didn't seem to think the palates matched the nose. Early drinkers he said. I had never had the vignolo bottling before and boy did it show, it was a 2000 and my favorite out of the 04 boschis, 01 vigna san giuseppe that sat in front of me. It was great to see what the clay soil did in a hot vintage. He said the critics prefer boschis but he prefers vignolo. I agreed and I love boschis. During this process he brought out a plate of the best parmesean I've had, salt crunchies galore. He explained that you cannot buy this anywhere, you must go to the location, aged 5 years he said. It was heaven and paired the best with the young, concentrated and tannic 2004 boschis.

As giuseppe continued to explain traditional barolo he explained that the most important development in traditional barolo is what happens in the bottle. He called it a second evolution and quickly stated that it is very hard to tell or predict this evolution and that the critics don't seem to have a grip on it when it comes to the traditionalists. Over the course of the conversation he also indicated his frustration with critics tasting nebbiolo so fast and without enough attention although he seemed to accept it as he understood their hectic schedules and the sheer volume of wines they taste per day. Either way it wasn't a service to the wine. The greatest complement I received over the course of the conversation was when giusepe said I can see your passion for barolo, you are an expert and know more than many journalists who sit in your seat. I blushed, what a compliment. The conversation drifted on as it seems neither us nor giuseppe wanted to leave as if we were the negatives and positives of a magnet. The girls were transfixed with the wines each grappling with the haunting aromatics coming out of the 3 glass barolo comparison, each comparing tannin acid and aromatics, as I gave them something to think about with each passing minute. It almost seemed as if giuseppe and I continued in technical conversation while the girls were doing what joeg and I normally do, drift away in the moment of the wine. Kimber is new to wine but had asked me more questions in the last few weeks with me than most do, so she clearly has an interest in the technical aspects of wine. On the other hand my girlfriend annie has drank a lot of high quality wine with me over the years only to give me an occasional ooo this is good or I don't like it. I've never seen her get lost in a wine....until then....annie seemed almost giddy at the aromatics and tastes of her wines....she finally said I think I understand why you get the way you do about wine. I looked at her tasting notes, she had written to die for, this smells amazing, and smells beautiful. I'm not sure why but I think she has always viewed wine with a stigma. With the gentleness of mauro and giusepe and the amazing surroundings and clear passion of these two men I think she finally let her guard down and let the wine take her away. This was special for me, because she has had these wines before from my cellar...she didn't know it though until after. The only force strong enough to pull our experience apart was the hunger that was tugging at our stomachs. I signed an autograph card for giuseppe and gave him some pins to put along side his usa curling pins from when they visited. He was so excited. We indicated the wines we wanted to buy and he went to get them. On his return he sat back at the table. He made a comment that he would be the last generation, at least of the traditionalists. He said no one wants to do the work, all the younger kids want to do is go to the disco and drink beer. He almost indicated that the traditional method is dying and that something new is replacing it. It saddened us. As I tried to give him my credit card for the wine he refused to take it, stating the first time is free for you, I know you will appreciate them and that is what matters. As we got in the car he rushed to give us all a cavallotto corkscrew and a detailed map of castiglione falletto, its very hard to find these he said but they are the most detailed. We wisked off into the night all with a new perspective about wine and life.