Is Barolo Destined To Become A Baller Wine?

Rarity, exclusivity, and price inflation would seem to be what qualifies a wine as having baller potential. With the new pricing and availability paradigms established with the 2010 vintage of Barolo, can the ordering off of restaurant lists of newly released Monfortino and Giacosa red labels be far behind? Have you tried to find a bottle of the 2010 Bartolo Barolo lately? It’s got to be going somewhere.

I guess “Baller” is a term I am not familiar with having not been around the wine boards in awhile, but from your description I would think that Barolo became a “Baller” beginning with the 1996 vintage. Price inflation continued for a couple years but fell back significantly when the bandwagon jumpers realized that Barolo, even New Wave Barolo wasn’t quite their cup of tea. The same will happen with the 2010s, though the prices that I see are fairly stable.

What is happening as a result of the 2010 hype is a reverse halo effect where earlier vintages are being shunned to the point that excellent wines, from very good producers are being heavily discounted…and THAT’s a good thing.

That being said I still haven’t gone through my stock of 95s through 2001 so I can be patient.


JJB

I doubt Barolo will reach the “baller” status like the burgs (and hope it will never in my life time [stirthepothal.gif] ) It caters to a much smaller audience. Also it won’t be popular on restaurant list, because of its requirement for long time aging.

Not going to happen. If is not flashy enough. These people don’t drink Crystal and DRC because they like the wine. They drink it because it draws attention and show off the $$$.

Not sure I agree with you on the second part. I drink Tache along at home, just because it is a truely amazing experience.

You sir are not a baller. One of the first rules of ballin is to not waste an opportunity to show off that you are/were ballin. If you ball and no one sees it, it didn’t happen.

Giacosa, G. Conterno, Cappellano, a few more. Yep. With age on them, Baller Juice no doubt.

Try to find some 1999, 2001, 2004 Monfortino. Was easy to find sub $500 a year or 2 ago. Now? Ha!

Try to find some 2001 or 2004 Giacosa Rocche red label. Was sub $300 and $400 respectively just a year or 2 ago. Now? Ha!

Baller Juice

True ‘Dat an’ Mos’ Def!!!

They are amazingly tasty juice…at 500-600 per bottle or less…they are not qualified for baller juice yet…
The painful thing with those barolo is not the money spent…but the time you have to wait for them to mature…

Not going to happen. There was relatively little made of the great Nebbioli, and the old farts not only bought it all up before the current generation of ballers knew what Barolo was (or were born, in many cases), we also drank a lot of it along the way. We are not going to sell any of it to the ballers, either, and we would have no problem outbidding them at auction, in the increasingly unlikely event that any show up. Old Nebbiolo farts are a force of nature, armed with deep cellars (and plenty of prune juice, too). Ballers do not have the attention span to parry and thrust with the likes of us. They will invariably end up going after the low-hanging fruit juice instead…$2,000 bottles of 10,000-case first-growth Bordeaux and $4,000 bottles of 1,500-2,000-case La Tache. More impressive to their friends anyway…

Consider these numbers:

Barbaresco:
1967 Giacosa Asili Riserva Speciale-7,210 bottles
1990 Giacosa Asili Riserva-2,000 bottles
1996/2000/2004/2007 Giacosa Asili Riserva-average 1,200 cases of wine (including large format juice)
2001 Giacosa Rabaja Riserva-6,846 bottles
1978 Giacosa Santo Stefano white label-6,450 bottles
1964 Giacosa Santo Stefano Riserva Speciale (SSRS)-1,240 bottles
1971 Giacosa SSRS-2,100 bottles
1978 Giacosa SSRS-3,650 bottles
1982 Giacosa SSR-13,800 bottles
1985 Giacosa SSR-13,600 bottles
1989 Giacosa SSR-8,770 bottles
1990 Giacosa SSR-12,156 bottles, 760 1.5Ls

Barolo:
Cappellano-averages 800 cases of Barolo per year, ALL BOTTLINGS COMBINED
Monfortino-historically averaged 500 cases per year (including large format juice); 333 cases in 1982, 855 cases in 2001
1989 A. Conterno Gran Bussia-6,505 bottles, 414 1.5Ls
1971 Giacosa Arione-6,500 bottles
1978 Giacosa Arione-6,000 bottles
1971 Giacosa Collina Rionda white label-7,050 bottles
1967 Giacosa Collina Rionda Riserva Speciale-5,500 bottles
1978 Giacosa Collina Rionda Riserva Speciale-6,850 bottles
1982 Giacosa Collina Rionda Riserva-5,660 bottles
1989 Giacosa Collina Rionda Riserva-2,838 bottles
Giacosa Falletto Riserva and Le Rocche Riserva-averages 1,000-1,275 cases per vintage; 1,222 cases for the 1996 Falletto Riserva (including large format juice); 1,275 cases (including large format juice) for the 2004 and 2007 Le Rocche Riservas; 1,075 cases (including large format juice) for the 2000 and 2001 Le Rocche Riservas
1974 Giacosa Ginestra white label-8,600 bottles
1978 Giacosa Pugnane white label-8,213 bottles
1971 Giacosa Le Rocche di Castiglione Falletto Riserva Speciale-4,070 bottles
1978 Giacosa Villero Riserva Speciale-3,060 bottles
1997 G. Mascarello Monprivato Ca’ d’ Morissio-4,800 bottles (including 1.5Ls)
2001 G. Mascarello Monprivato Ca’ d’ Morissio-2,500 bottles (including 1.5Ls)
2004 G. Mascarello Monprivato Ca’ d’ Morissio-3,733 bottles (including 1.5Ls)
1979 Sandrone Barolo (CB) Riserva-2,050 bottles
1982 Sandrone Barolo (CB)-4,550 bottles
Sandrone Cannubi Boschis-averages 1,000 cases per vintage (including large format juice), 1,600 cases in 1990 (including large format juice)
1996 Vietti Villero Riserva-3,873 bottles, 50 1.5Ls
1997 Voerzio Vecchie Vite dei Capalot e delle Brunate Riserva-660 1.5Ls

I do think it’s already there to a degree - ok maybe not to the extent of Petrus, DRC, Crystal etc., but plenty will buy Giacosa or Gaja because they are aware it’s ‘top wine’ and they want to drink ‘only the best’.

Maybe all of us who drink mainly Barolo/Barbaresco, but ignore Roero, Gattinara, Langhe nebbiolo etc. are just a lower level of baller, when a Langhe nebbiolo (or Barbera or Dolcetto) might be a better match for our food.

When Rudy Kurniawan and Rob Rosania outbid one another on your 1971 Giacomo Conterno Barolo Riserva Monfortino Speciale one night on WineCommune and you meet to give it to Rudy in a Starbucks on Broadway and Grand street and he hands you CASH then tells you it is the cheapest bottle him and Rob an some others will be drinking that coming night, you may be too late with the question. :slight_smile:

True story

Sorry, on a side note, this 1990 Brovia Monprivato was deemed a fake by Alex Sanchez of Brovia on a recent visit. Last time he drank the wine was with Rudy in LA.

There’s a few fakes turning up now in Asia. Being kept quiet but back to the original question, the hoarders of Asia are buying up big on Barolo from 2010 and there’s more interest. But I don’t think the wines will be everyone’s cup of tea, but the top end and potentially new top end wines will be well supported. I witnessed Maria Teresa hounded in Hong Kong recently by collectors after her 2010 and it was ugly- I wish these boring folk would just work their way through their excessive Bordeaux and Burgundy collections.

So it will be interesting to see if recent Asian demand and interest for 2010 will be sustained. Probably not if they pull the corks on a few.




I think a few producers are seeing their prices and prestige skyrocket to trophy levels, but 98% of good quality Barolo and Barbaresco remains pretty reasonably priced, not getting snapped up, not really causing a stir outside of that modest subset of wine geeks who are really into them. Aided by the long run of good-to-great vintages going back to the mid 90s with only a couple of exceptions along the way, which have caused inventories to pile up, prices to stay in check, and sales/bargains to pop up fairly often.

Honestly, I don’t think the appeal of Barolo and Barbaresco is that broad, even among wine lovers. I love them, personally, but I haven’t sensed that they get a hold of most wine drinkers.

I wish I was baller enough to drink Crystal.
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Piamonte Norte de Italia wines suck. Stop talking about them. [wow.gif]

Maybe I will be priced out for the 2010. But recent monfortino and Giacosa reserva still offer good value for the money.

Yes, it’ll start with a select wines for the time being, and it will slowly expand out, like Burgundy did.

Perhaps they thought she was Mother Teresa?!

I hope you are correct Bill but I am not sure the low production scarcity/ high production low-hanging fruit model correlates.

For example- what is the MOST Baller wine right now and how many were made??

IMO (of course) …wait for it…Rose… from 1995 … $42,780 last sale… 25 cases made … the super-baller that brings this to the table will create whimpers of agony- especailly if opened and drunk. In all seriousness though, I don’t think amount matters much. I would bet vintage Sine Qua Non such as above (made by MK) will be the ultimate baller wine in 10+ years. The price action already hints to it and it has the properties of ‘trophy’. People are chasing and driving up the price of scarce, average-rated, past it’s prime OR pinot from SQN…ballin’.

At the same time though, Monfortino and now the Red labels (specifically under Bruno) should have it’s parallels to the price action of Grand Cru… and the more you fight it, the more scarce it is and the more they want it… to be ballin’.

If you really want ensure a legacy of non-ballin on your beloved labels, call all of your contemporaries and simultaneously flood the market with massive amounts of Riserva wine, drive the price into the basement and create a glut of accessibility … hmm, yes- that’s what you should do.