Finally A New Book About Barolo And Barbaresco

WINE TALK
41

Got my copy ystrday. Spent about an hour going thru it, reading bits here & there. Sorta underwhelmed by the book.
Would like more of a “story” and less recitation of “facts”. Would make the book more interesting to me.

Part I is about the history of the region and seems to be a rather interesting read. This is only about 1/5’th the book, though.
The remainder of the book is a (not-comprehensive) listing of the various towns and their producers residing there. The introductory
paragraphs about each town is moderately interesting. The listing for each producer, however, gets to be a bit of a tedious read. How many ha’s they
have where, which wines they produce, some of their history, etc. Not stuff you’d likely sit down & read thru and learn a lot unless you’re
interested in a lot of factual/encyclopeadic information.
I’ll probably read Part I thoroughly and then refer to tedious details for each wnry as I encounter one of their btls to taste.

Curious: What was the NapaVlly wnry that AldoConterno helped his uncle start up in the '50’s??

Tom

42

So the book has been panned for being too encyclopedic and for not being encyclopedic enough. Must be about right.

I love wine books with clear opinions about what is good and genuine, myself.

43

People in the wine business generally like such books, especially if they help them sell their wines, even if the opinions have to be very selectively used. Usually a given importer can find a composite that works every producer represented.

For those of us not trying to sell wine…and me…i. am much more selective about what I am interested in learning from a book.


I will continue to look at this thread with a open mind…and interest…and…might end up buying it at some point, after I get a better feel for how much “clear opinions about what is good and genuine” have limited this particular book.


On this particular subject…after visiting the region and many winemakers…I do think this “controversy” over what is “good and genuine” is pretty contrived by those selling and writing about the wines, as opposed to people making them and apprecicating them/buying them. Establishing what is “good and genuine” in most things…is often futile…and ,at least in Burgundy, often was an argument over using better hygeine – or not, when that “controversy” was "raging"therein the '80s and early '90s. There is no clearly rigid “tradition” in any wine region I know of, though everyone claims that banner or think they can articulate it. Ask someone in Chablis who makes “traditional” Chablis.

44

It’s 25 bucks… it’s a book…
buy it, read it… don’t buy it, does it really matter?

People drop $150/btl on a 3 pack 1st year release of the ‘next cult’ napa cab without hesitating…

it’s 25 dollars folks… :wink:

45

Stuart,

I sell Barolo because I love it, and I sell the kind of Barolo and Barbaresco I sell because I think that style best represents the essential character of the appellation, and because I think it tastes better. It’s only lately that the critics have started to appreciate this style, so I can assure you I wasn’t espousing the more traditional style to make money. You introduced the word ‘rigid,’ which is a straw man, but there is certainly a traditional way of making Barolo*, and there was certainly a tendency for producers who wanted to get press and sell wine easily to use barriques and roto-fermenters. This tendency has receded, but not disappeared. (There are badly made traditional wines, too; I am interested in what I call ‘enlightened traditional’ wines, meaning cleanly made traditional wines.)

There are certainly wines that are good and genuine, which is just as well, as importing those wines is what I do for a living. What exactly those words mean is of course a great topic for argument. I can assure you that there are many producers with very strong opinions about the essential character of their terroir, and about who is respecting it and who is not.

  • 100% Nebbiolo, long maceration, long aging in big barrels. The minimum time in wood has just been reduced for both Barolo and Barbaresco, which makes this particularly important in future releases.
46

Well said.

47

Well said, but silly.

There are lots of books out there to buy and read on a gazillion subjects, including wine.

The issue is not what they cost, per se, but whether I/one want to spend our limited time to read them. Of course, books’ cost usually pale by comparison to trophy wines…and many others. But, that’s not my criterion. I’m not looking for decoration for my “library”, but good reading, by my criteria.

Why not!! is never a good reason, at least for me, to buy any book…and certainly not a reason to read it. Ive’ got plenty of good candidates for buying and reading…and not enough time to read nearly as many as I think are worthy.

48

Really interesting comments on Dante Scaglione, page 266, and seems at odds with what others have said. Not so sure about the comments on Santo Stefano either, page 267, I am doing a dinner in two weeks with Italo and will speak to him about the vineyard.

49

Stuart, you could have done a round trip to Barnes & Noble and back and browsed through the book to your heart’s content in the amount of time you’ve spent speculating here about the content.

50

[rofl.gif]

It could also be said that, in the time everyone has been debating with Stuart what he should read, they could have … well … done just about anything else and it would have been more productive and likely to succeed.

51

+1
Except I just read this whole thread.

52

I am now just looking this book cover. Hope it will be good. I will take decision to buy it as soon to talk with my wife… Because i did share with my wife before any kind of work…

53

So no Vietti? And no G.D. Vajra? Hard to take this book seriously. Maybe she will get it right in Vol II.

54

I am happy to let the book rise or fall on its own merits. She has my money, but also a goodly dose of my skepticism. There are troubling and almost-embarrassing flights of hyperbole in the Brunello book that are not supported by much of anything but her personal opinion, and that not always at all well-informed. Interestingly, in the Brunello book, she talks at one point about having a father-in-law with a cellar chock full of properly aged Barolo and Barbaresco along with Brunello, and how she nevertheless finds herself coming back to Brunello time after time. She also claims that Brunello is most akin to Burgundy, which any drinker of old Nebbiolo knows is hooey. On the one hand, she noted that quality Brunello only dates back to 1975, but yet, somehow, it is nevertheless the nectar of the gods, despite the overwhelming weight of critical opinion having Brunello as a perennial underachiever that rarely hits the heights of Barolo and Barbaresco, and it is not even as well-repected as many Maremma wines, “super-Tuscans” from elsewhere and the best Chianti Classicos (which is most resembles). I forgive her a lot of that, because surely nobody would buy a book on Brunello that spends its time making unfavorable comparisons to other wines, but I do not embrace the content that is at odds with reality, either.

As I said before, when compared to Larner, Galloni, Suckling and Sanderson, she is, I think, the best technical writer of the bunch, but like all of them but Suckling, she also lacks the years and years of experience that it takes to truly understand Nebbiolo, and she is, again like all but Suckling, pursuing the same on-the-job training program that the others have/are, moving from a few articles, to the vanity-press Bondi Santi book, to the Brunello book, to the new one and taking Larner’s vacated slot at WE (which will not make her famous but could serve as a useful stepping stone). I do give her credit for ambition, hard work and leveraging her opportunities successfully. (Sort of the anti-R…oh, never mind!) And do not think that I singled out Suckling because of the high quality of his work. I would buy nothing that he writes. I singled him out only because of his age, the amount of free wine that he has sucked down and the fact that he has a home in Tuscany. I omitted Tanzer because he has never pursued much beyond tasting notes and vintage overviews, although he is clearly capable of more. As a long-time fan, I think that he, too, is a better writer than any of the rest, including Ms. O’Keefe. I also think that Ian d’Agata is a much better researcher and writer, but he chose to put his efforts in to an excellent book, but one that is hardly a page-turner for anybody. (Well, except maybe you, Bob Hughes!)

It seems to me that the major obstacle that she faces is that she simply has not had the time to pay her Nebbiolo dues. The wisest Nebbiolo heads on this board are in their 50s, 60s and 70s, and STILL learning new things daily. That should not be held against her, because those who might know more are not writing books. She has no doubt left some important things out, and written some things that are wrong. That is not necessarily the yardstick by which the book will ultimately be measured…

55

I do admit to liking Ian’s book quite a bit. And quite frankly, if you just treat it as an “Italian grape encyclopedia”, I find it to be an easy read. It could get mind-numbing if you actually tried to read it in page order, but if you just want to refer to it to get his thoughts on Ciliegiolo or Bonamico, for example, it’s pretty easy to use.

While I don’t quite have the level of passion that Ian or our own Roberto have about all of the different grape varieties grown in your adopted homeland, I do love Italian wines, and to some degree find it embarrassing that over 90% of my Italian wines are comprised of two grapes. But thanks to both Ian’s weighty tome as well as Bill Nesto’s book on Sicily, I have been making an effort to “diversify my Italian wine portfolio” in the last six months or so. I can now say I’ve got grapes from Albarola to Zibibbo in my cellar [wink.gif] , and in general I’ve been enjoying the new learning/taste experiences. Although, and I’m sure much to Roberto’s chagrin, I still don’t possess a single bottle of Lambrusco.

I bought the book - it hasn’t arrived yet, but I do have to admit that I’m afraid it will end up just like my Nicholas Belfrage book on Tuscany - something that only gets looked at very infrequently.

56

Bob, two words: Frizzante Ortrugo!

57

Sottimano is listed and comes off quite well.

58

Bob,

what the hell is Albarola?

59

Part of the Cinque Terre blend:

60

Yup…pretty much agree w/ that assessment, Bill. Seems like they sent a rookie to do a pro’s job.

OTOH, I find Ian’s book fascinating and am reading it cover to cover. But, then, when I was in grade school, in Miss Rickey’s 5’th
grade class, I would pull off the shelf a volume of the EncyclopediaBritannica, just open it to a page, and start reading.
Probably, you or I should explain to the young folks what an encyclopedia is!! The predecessor to Wikipedia…sat on a bookshelf…
and was far/far better edited.
Tom