Wine and Spirits - December 2011 - (Page 20)

BAROLO August 14, 2011 post-modern A Sommelier’s View from the Vineyards and Cellars of Alba by Henry Davar to terms with their place in the style spectrum now, he says. “We weren’t embarrassed by our botti in the nineties and we aren’t embarrassed by our barriques today.” Compared to the winemakers of the 1970s and 1980s—the decades of the Barolo Boys, new barriques and the roto-fermenter— many of today’s younger winemakers exhibit more sensitivity to the potential of the grapes, the nature of the vintage and the personality of the cru. Indeed, just this past May I had arrived in Alba for Nebbiolo Prima. Over the course of ﬁve morning tasting sessions, we tasted over 300 young nebbiolo-based wines, and I counted less than 30 of the wines, or roughly ten percent, marred by evidence of excessive oak or extraction. Since I had always been able to count the rigidly classical producers on two hands, where did the remainder of the wines, like Vajra’s, ﬁt in? Was the modern–classical dialectic relevant today? The Sunday before Ferragosto, Italy’s Memorial Day and Labor Day rolled into one, we made the six-hour trip from Abruzzo to Castiglione Falletto, a medieval town that sits almost in the center of Barolo.The centro of Castiglione Falletto rests on top of a hill, home to two small hotels, a bar with views across to Serralunga d’Alba, a tabaccaio, and a small panettiere, the parish church of San Lorenzo, the cantina communale, the requisite medieval castle and the Vietti winery. This would be my home for the next three months as I began an internship with the Vietti-Currado-Cordero clan. Five months ago I had left my post as wine director at Del Posto in NYC to live in the wine region that I love most. I had been a student of Barolo and Barbaresco for several years. I had read all the books (twice), owned all the maps, attended tastings and popped corks. It was time for me to learn nebbiolo by picking grapes, pumping over tanks and shoveling vinaccia. In particular, I wanted to ﬁgure out where Barolo and Barbaresco were heading. The line between “old-school” and “new-school” producers had been slowly diminishing as many classicists were updating their practices and modernists learning to better manage the use of new barrels. Was a new style emerging? August 18th, At Dawn I follow the Vietti team down a trail from my guesthouse into Scarrone, a vineyard surrounding the town of Castiglione. In addition to nebbiolo, Scarrone includes a famed block of barbera planted in 1918 that Vietti bottles on its own. This day, in the middle of August, we’re armed with shears to perform a third and ﬁnal diradamento for the season. Many growers have determined that nebbiolo, which is typically harvested in mid- to late-October, has to be farmed to lower yields (through a combination of planting density, pruning, and green harvest) if it is to have a chance of achieving full physiological ripeness. And, in fact, many producers have pushed yields lower and lower to get riper, more concentrated wines. Today’s ﬁnal pass at Scarrone is not simply to reduce yields, but also a response to the cooler months earlier this summer. We set out to remove the ali (wings) and punti (points) of selected clusters. Gli ali, are smaller, secondary clusters that act as a safety valve: In a hot, dry vintage, the vine will draw water from the clusters to avoid going into shock. I ﬁrst broached the idea of a postmodern Barolo with Giuseppe Vaira of the G.S. Vajra winery in Verna on the outskirts of the village of Barolo. We were tasting his Bricco delle Viole 2005, which surprised me by not following a typical trajectory on the palate: The attack had the restrained high-acid signature of classic nebbiolo but the mid-palate oﬀered a generous pop of red berry fruit that seemed to arrive sooner and last longer than that of classic Barolo. The ﬁnish oﬀered satiny, well-integrated tannins and savory, mineral ﬂavors; it wasn’t about new oak. “Growing up I was caught in the middle of the war,” Vaira says, describing the tension he felt among his classmates, whose parents were polarized by the modern–classic debate, while his father sought a middle approach. “Ours is a Barolo on tip-toes,” he explains, a style with neither foot fully in the modern or traditional camp. He’s come 20 W I N E & S P I R I T S D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine and Spirits - December 2011

Wine and Spirits - December 2011
Editor’s Note
Happenings
Contents
Fined & Filtered Luke Sykora on Napa's Latest Vintages; Wine Manga Hits Our Stores
Spirits: Winter's New Must-Haves from Lou Bustamante
Bordeaux on the Down Low
Post-Modern Barolo
Coombsville Rising
Breaking the Mold
Where’s the Beef?
Extreme Values
Tastings Overview
Champagne
American Cabernet & Blends
Barolo & Barbaresco
Rioja
German Riesling
American Wines
Imported Wines
Champagne’s Warming Trend

Wine and Spirits - December 2011