Judging Potential With Barolo?

I’ve long thought that evaluating potential with wines is a very specialized ability. Judging intrinsic quality that indicates how a wine will develop, while it is still in barrel or newly bottled is very different than recognizing quality in a more developed wine. And knowing my limitations, the way I’ve most often done this for myself is to revisit a wine over the course of at least 2 and sometimes 3 days. If the wine shows well on subsequent days, I figure it has the bones for longevity and improvement with aging.

Now if it’s true that young Barolo is apt to shut down or become overwhelmingly tannic after exposure to air, the above mentioned technique is not possible. So it would seem that evaluating young Barolo is not something to be competently done by the inexperienced. Is it just a question of discerning that there is sufficient fruit to tannin to acid balance? How does one determine a young Barolo’s potential longevity not to mention a viable drinking window?

It would seem that professional critics, or as some refer to them, robo-tasters, would be especially valuable when evaluating a wine like Barolo.

I thought we just guessed drinking potential and windows.

1. Always a dangerous maneuver
2. Find someone to tell you what to do
3. 

Michael…those “robo tasters” do have a wealth of experience…when the wines are young. Some of them have good experience later in their evolution, too…but…in proportion to the acess to wines tasted in barrel…later access is a rarefied event. and costly…and only a snapshot.

For me, tasting in barrel is about as good an insight as there is, though , admittedly that , too, can be altered by the bottling process, storage, age and applying ones tastebuds. In barrel, it is more of a structural analysis. When I’ve tasted barrel (lots in Burgundy and Alsace and Chablis and much less in Piemonte), I’ve concluded the structural approach is the best there is: is there enough fruit vs. structure…and alcohol, etc, ie, what’s left on the finish of the wine and its length…quality and duration.

Even that is treacherous and very subjective…and depends on what one values (I hate pronounced alcohol on the finish; those wines, IMO, never imporove). But…I’d rather bet on those wines that I’ve tasted that way…and those vintages…than any other resource. I don’t trust the robo tasters …and never have…for my purchasing dollars.

So, to specifically answer your question…there is no substitute, IMO, for your own tastebuds/ evaluation of the structure of a wine…and if it can’t be done early…whenever is better than never and better than relying on the professsionals. (And, as good as they are…they taste in such volume, their buds, like all humans, only have a limit to what they can appreciate…and it’s not a high number, though they report on a high number.)

And, I don’t think Barolo is really any different…just maybe different criteria for the evaluation…just like evaluating white wine is different from reds…you have to figure out what you’re trying to look for.

FWIW.

Done blind, I’d say it’s nigh on impossible, at least to the implied levels of ‘accuracy’ implied by the pros. Decanter ably prove this with their blind tasting write-ups.

However with label in view and good knowledge of how previous wines under that label have progressed, then a sensible guess can be made.

Broadly I agree with Stuart, though barrel tasting can be much trickier than tasting bottled wine. In a nutshell, you look for the balance of fruit, tannin and acid.

That said, winemakers often misgauge the future of their own wines young, on the upside and downside. So I think anyone attempting to assess a very young wine has to approach the task with a lot of modesty and respect for the vagaries of wine.

In one respect, I do think Barolo is different and harder to assess young than other reds. Because of the high tannins, your palette can wear out much more quickly if you’re tasting a lot wines. That can even be an issue tasting and retasting a single wine.

Retasting a bottle a day or two after it’s opened can offer interesting insights. If the wine blossoms and stays sound, and that balance of fruit and structure is there, I’d generally find that positive. But I’d continue to focus on the overall balance and depth.

Not sure it’s limited to Barolo. Ever try a few young aglianico’s together?!

Yes, Markus, I once attended a tasting of ~20 aglianicos. They, too, will make your gums curl back.

Serious question. Are these troll posts?

Wonder how many people would accurately guage the longevity of a Monprivato if served blind. Very few would be my guess.

Relying on results from older vintages of similar characteristics should give better results than anything else. Especially when considering traditional producers that haven’t changed their techniques much over the last several decades. I’d trust that over anyone spending a couple minutes max with a recent release.

It is a combination of science, art and luck. For me, I have tasted so many big wines young - Barolo, Barbaresco, Taurasi etc, that you develop a feel for the tannins. And how to see past and through them. You can get a sense of where the structure on the wine is in relation to the fruit. Imagine yourself standing in front of a wall. You can hear sounds and smell aromas from behind the wall. You don’t need to see the party to know that one is taking place behind the wall. But it is not 100%. Sometimes you miss. Everybody misses. That is the challenge. Wine is many things, easy is not one of them.

It would seem that professional critics, or as some refer to them, robo-tasters, would be especially valuable when evaluating a wine like Barolo.

This.

If you’re professional, you are an expert and can see the future.

This assumes of course, that you would discount the people who have had much more experience than many “professionals” and who have been tasting the wines far longer.

John put it very well - “winemakers often misgauge the future of their own wines young, on the upside and downside. So I think anyone attempting to assess a very young wine has to approach the task with a lot of modesty and respect for the vagaries of wine.”

It applies to every region.

I’ve talked to many winemakers about this over the years and they pretty much agree. After a number of years with a particular wine/region/producer, you can get a sense of what to expect, but nobody can really predict the future.

So who has that experience? Well, some of the people who grew up in the region in wine making families. Also maybe guys like John, who’s been drinking these wines as long as I’ve known him. And a few others, some of whom are in the business and taste the wines regularly and have been doing so for years. Or guys like Klapp who not only has been tasting them for years but decided to just move there permanently so he could drink them all day long.

A Johnny-come-lately robo-taster? Those are borderline useless.

This is yet ANOTHER crypto-pro-Galloni, broken-record troll. Maybe this is how Monie milks value out of his Vinous subscription.

The answer is no, there is no special value given nor special ability reflected in reviewer assessments. None were born to the calling. All started with zero experience and started tasting wines, and a few figured out a way to do that for free. Some, like Galloni, O’ Keefe and Sanderson, do not have as much relevant tasting experience as some of the elders on this board, and all three have abundant silly or blown calls on their resumes. Others, like Parker, simply did not understand Nebbiolo. (Check out the Cappellano scores that the arrogant prick was asked not to post by Baldo Cappellano, and you will see the depth of Parker’s Nebbiolo tone-deafness.) Suckling is a self-promoting buffoon. None of the Brits offer much of anything. Tanzer, who has the most solid current resume of all, is now out of business, thanks to Galloni. You have the often excellent, detailed work of Ian d’ Agata, but not for the Piemonte.

Here is what you do, Mike: attend every Nebbiolo tasting that your local retailers offer. As John noted, what you are looking for is balance of acid, fruit and tannins, and to understand the degree of fineness and integration of the tannins. You are also interested in the aromatics, but young Nebbiolo is not always going to offer you a good read on that. More you will not find, amd more no reviewer will find. And check this out: you can detect those elements in a wine that is completely shut down, and you may well get a better read than barrel samples give reviewers! I can tell you that, having done both, I find bottle tasting dramatically more reliable. The only thing that published results of barrel tastings offer is a look before the wines are for sale and a general idea of the quality of the vintage. Look at some of Parker’s older Northern Rhone barrel vs. bottle scores, and see how often the bottle score is out of whack with the barrel scores. (Of course, later on, his bottle scores are almost always in line with his bracketed scores because, as he has assured us, his palate is so consistent that it never varies by more than a couple of points.)

And even if I shared your view, tell me exactly where most tasting notes, and especially those of your hero, one can be expected to find the critically important information? You have been told by almost everyone on this board that you will not find it in notoriously unreliable drinking-window estimates, which are either absurdly short or so wide-ranging as to be useless. It is not in the score, which MAY tell you that the 2010 Monfortino is likely a better wine than the 2010 Vajra Albe, but then you knew that in 2009, right? And it is certainly not in vapid tasting notes that are fraught with vapid bullshit like “this wine is all about finesse”. You do not need flowery, repetitive gushing. You need to know about balance, etc., and you would be better served by the sort of technical data that d’ Agata regularly provides and that nobody else, including Tanzer, does consistently. This is not rocket science. It is solely a matter of amassing experience. I agree with John that you will probably have better luck with bottled young Nebbiolo than with barrel samples, which seem to keep tripping up your idol. (See the post of your other idol, So, about the effect of extended aeration on the 2008 Giacosa Asili. And be on the lookout for a reliable opinion on the 2010 Monprivato from someone other than Galloni, someone with a bit more experience with that often difficult wine.) You are quite welcome.

(Wine board keep on turnin’, proud Michael keep on burnin’, trollin’, trollin’, trollin’ down the river…)

If it is drinking well young what does it matter?

Not a lot of quality Nebbiolo drinks well young for most palates, and even for the short time that some do, one is spending a lot of money to drink something that may be giving you 10-25% of what you paid for. I will lay it on the line…if you do not like old Nebbiolo, you do not really like Nebbiolo, and probably would be better served putting those considerable wine dollars/Euros/whatever into other wines. What I say is not true of, say, most California wines, but it is true of most quality Bordeaux and Burgundy. Otherwise, wine reviewers and experienced drinkers on wine boards would not be telling you not to drink the wines for 5, 10, 15 years, would they? People are free to do what they want with their wines, of course, but at least one goal of a wine board should be to try and keep the inexperienced from doing stupid things, by sharing experience and information with them (an often thankless job!).

Ancient Kiwi, could it be that you are old enough to drink Burgundy but too old to drink mature Nebbiolo?

I expect so, old Nebbiolo is fiction other than for Barista Bill.

A couple of years ago, when I visited Giuseppe Rinaldi and tasted the Brunate 2010 from barrel, I was impressed by how expressive and fruity it was. A beautiful young wine, but with none of the typical aromatics of aged Nebbiolo which make it so unique. I loved what I tasted and said so, but also admitted right away that given my lack of experience, I wasn’t able to judge in the least, how the wine was going to evolve and how promising it was. So I asked Giuseppe Rinaldi for help and what his opinion was about how the wine was going to develop.
His answer was: “I don’t know”.
Of all the visits I made and chats I had with winemakers, this is one of the statements that stuck most strongly with me.

They were asking if you were around
How you was, where you could be found
I told them you were living downtown
Driving all the old men crazy

Gilberto…I have had dozens of such conversations…early on in my “career” tasting wines and visiting estates. I stopped asking long ago, though…I got a more varied set of responses: two categories: “I don’t know”…and those who offered all kinds of opinions, but really had no clue, but were interested.

Most winemakers, IMO, are in no position to have any better sense than anyone else. Most are not that intertested in the evolution and have had little experience with those issues. This shocked me. Just as much what shocked me were those who were not even interested in the subject. And…I still have vivid memories of such conversations.

After a while, I realized their limitations and accepted them…and they made sense, too…but…early on it was pretty shocking.

So…I developed my own criteria: focus on the finish of the wines I tasted…no matter when in their evolution…to figure out my own opinions…for whatever they were worth…and to focus on my own experiences only…not other “tasters’”. With that, I also decided to focus on a group of specific producers I could follow in vintage after vintage…hopefully the same wines from them…to at least try to understand “potential” in some context. I did that and am glad I did. But…even that “method” only gets one so far to “judging potential”. There are so many things that can go wrong down the line…including…aeration of a bottle, the setting, the care…and one’s own ability to concentrate…that…it is basically guessing.

I have a serious question for you also: why do you ask? If you have something substantive to contribute, why not just do so. If you don’t why do you care?

Every word of my original post is true. Sometimes it would be wise to remind ourselves of this little encapsulated world we move in, and that the vast majority of those interested in wine don’t participate in. If I wanted to participate in Nebbiolo tastings where I live, I would have to host them, with my wine. Not that I wouldn’t be receptive to doing so, but obviously the scope could only go so far.

And if I can raise Master Boykin’s and Mr. Bill’s blood pressure a point or two, well, that’s just foam on the cappuccino.