you were referring to this previous comment (sorry I am a bit slow)
So I take it that you hate Gigi Rosso Arione, which is perfectly fine, de gustibus non disputandum est. I got interested in Arione after O’Keefe’s book came out and tried the 3 most recent vintages. I had 2 bottles of its 2010 and that’s enough for me. I thought the 2009 was very good and I am looking to buy more, and I only had a bottle of 2011 which was almost as good as the 2009. It’s only 3 vintages but it seems to me that it is a hit or miss situation that is totally unrelated to the vintage as they must have screwed up the 2010 in the cellar.
Roberto Conterno seems to concur with O’Keefe’s take that Arione is a great vineyard given that he paid more than 8 million dollars for a mere 3.5 hectares of vines for Barolo (plus 1 Barbera and 1 Nebbiolo d’Alba that are not worth much), that’s a record for a Barolo vineyard. And that’s money coming out from the great perfectionist of Barolo, not a newcomer with just a lot of money.
The reaction to the announcement of Conterno’s purchase was almost 100% uniform - i.e., finally, a credible producer to take over a vineyard that had been a total waste of time under the previous proprietor.
Kerin’s laudatory comments about Gigi’s wine remain the only positive praise regarding his work that I have read, but I will caveat that by saying I have only been drinking Barolo since the '78 vintage .
An Italian proverb says ‘meglio soli che male accompagnati’ but that’s not the case. I do not subscribe to any newsletter/magazine but I googled “Gigi Rosso Arione 2009”, the one I liked the best of the 3 most recent vintages. I found this through Snooth website:
“An elegant style, exuding aromas and flavors of rose, cherry, strawberry, tobacco and leather matched to a linear frame. Well-defined and balanced, with a long finish of earth, spice and savory details. Best from 2016 through 2030. 1,300 cases made. BS - Wine Spectator Magazine 93 Points”
So there are at least 2 critics giving praise to Gigi Rosso Arione, O’Keefe and Sanderson.
As I will follow Ken’s suggestion to try again Vietti’s wines as they improved recently, perhaps you should give another try to Gigi Rosso Arione.
Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then.
Look, no one is saying that Gigi Rosso is incapable of making a good wine. But if you are going to drink Nebbiolo and you are making the wines of Gigi Rosso a “cornerstone” of your cellar, that is IMO a true sucker’s bet.
Now, I was in the same room as Ken when we drank the 2008 Vietti Rocche - if you can find that wine, I will guarantee you a pleasurable drinking experience in 2030.
More to the point regarding “producer hierarchy”, if you were to post a poll here with the simple question “who do you consider a better producer”, with the choices being Vietti and Gigi Rosso, I am willing to bet we would see a landslide of epic proportions - unless knowledgeable and experienced Barolo drinkers would just dismiss the poll out of hand as an obvious troll.
So with all due respect, I will definitely be taking a pass on your advice to check out Gigi’s wines.
But Bobulous, are you really condemning an entire book due to one or two points you strongly disagree with? I won’t disagree with your evaluation of Rosso or Vietti, but that doesn’t make it a bad book.
Do you think Antonio is a bad critic because he likes Voerzio?
Do you still think I am a fool for liking Giacosa more than Conterno? Apparently you are still willing to drink with me.
Bob
Playing devil’s advocate, you must have drunk a lot of Gigi Rosso’s wines to hold such a firm view?
We’ve visited the region a few times, and have had an interest for quite a few years now, but I’m conscious how we’ve barely scratched the surface, and walking around the villages, we stumble across names we’ve never heard of before. Seeing Pat’s excellent compilation of producers & their trad / modern leaning, made me realise that we’ve tasted from a shockingly small minority of the producers… and this is the area that is most represented in our drinking and buying.
Apologies for what probably comes across as a swipe above, but I’m conscious how I find myself making judgements about producers from as little as 3-4 tasting samples or a couple of bottles - maybe even a single bottle (I’m thinking for instance of me damning Damilano based on a couple of tasting samples and a half bottle of nebbiolo and a somewhat glossy tasting room between Barolo and Annunziata). I may also have been just as unfair on Marchesi di Barolo who I’m sure I’ve described a ‘Fat, dumb, and happy’. Are we really as great a judge as we think we are, and have we really tasted enough to be properly informed?
That’s not to say we can’t level the same criticism at some self-proclaimed experts who appear to parachute into a region to pronounce their judgements, or indeed the critics who simply follow the other critics to the same old ‘prestigious’ / known wines.
Also, looking at the prices on wine-searcher, I see Gigi Rosso’s Arione Barolo at ~£21 a bottle for the latest vintage in the UK (2008). Vietti’s entry level Barolo (Castiglione) is ~ £30 a bottle, and their single vineyard bottlings go from £70 a bottle upwards. Comparing apples and oranges?
I’m very much in the market for good / interesting Barolo at £20-25, much more so than for £75-£100 wines. It’s a surprisingly happy hunting ground, and even a little below the £20 mark.
Ken, I’m not going to revisit the entire earlier debate on the merits of the book - let’s just say I was very underwhelmed and you and I have come to different opinions about the value of said book.
As I said earlier, if you know nothing about Piemonte, it’s probably a nice intro.
Ian, this will probably come across as unduly harsh, but I am not a wine critic and I feel no compulsion to exhaustively taste any producer’s wines in order to give them the benefit of the doubt.
If you think the Gigi Rosso wines are good value in your market, I’m happy for you. If I want a “value” producer, I usually find that Produttori or Porro fills the bill for me. For the Produttori’s in particular, that opinion is based on 30 years of drinking the wines over multiple vintages and vineyards.
If I’ve sold Gigi short based upon a too limited sample size in your eyes, I am comfortable with missing that boat. I am looking forward to seeing what Roberto Conterno can actually do with the site, as in my opinion there is no reason why Arione shouldn’t produce much higher quality results.
Bob
I can confidently say I have less experience with Gigi Rosso than you, and can definitely say I have no more experience of them than you, so I don’t know if I’d find them value or not. You may be able to guess how many bottles I’ve experienced
Produttori were for years the easy value in the region. Prices have jumped up a little, to the point I was leaning elsewhere, though the change in exchange rate means I’m less worried about the new euro prices. In amongst the great value going back, they also do sterling work in feeding our geeky interest in ‘terroir’ with organised horizontal tastings and mixed cases including all the cru plus the normale / Langhe nebbiolo.
As for personally making a judgement, based on a potentially unfairly small sample size - the reality is we have to make those sort of decisions as wine drinkers. We may be wrong, but it’s awfully difficult to choose a wine from a producer whose last wine was ‘meh’ when there is wine from another producer available whose wines we’ve enjoyed, or who we feel merits a try. I’m sure we all do it very regularly, and even with whole regions or grapes based on a sample size that wouldn’t get a statistician out of bed.
There are just too many wines for us to be truly fair or realistic when wiping a producer from our radar.
Here’s a real life, personal example - I have probably tried 7-10 different vintages of Shafer Hillside Select. The lactic, blueberry milkshake “feel” of the wine actually comes close to making me retch - I honestly can’t get a full glass down.
Are you guys actually saying that I should continue to subject myself to this wine on an annual basis in the off chance that someday either my palate will change or the winemaker will style his wine differently?
Like I said earlier, I’m not a wine critic, I’m a wine drinker. Continually subjecting myself to something that I find appalling on the off chance that this year the wine might not suck is in my opinion totally asinine.
… and this I think is the crux of our differences in this thread. If I’d tasted a producer’s wines on a couple of occasions, and been underwhelmed, I’d be unlikely to even order a glass in an enoteca, or taste their wines again at a big scrum tasting, let alone buy one or more bottles. There is too much wine around to keep trying stuff we didn’t like before. On this I think we are all in violent agreement. OK if someone says (like Vietti) that the style has changed, then if we like the sound of that style change, we may be open to trying again.
What we should be wary of though, is using 2-3 tasting glasses or a single bottle to pronounce that a producer is not worth the effort, not very good, and to be avoided, even if we ourselves are following that path. It’s just not a credible sample size.
Bob’s example of the Shafer Hillside Select is different IMO, as ~ 8 different occasions, and the same dislike, shows that for Bob’s palate (and if you have similar tastes), this isn’t a wine to pursue any more.
I think forum favourite ( ) Bobby P has a lot to blame for here, as he’s brought a strident and strongly opinionated style into wine writing. It wasn’t about like or dislike with him, but about right and wrong. Hard opinion.
FWIW, while we’re chastising Bob for dismissing producers based upon limited sample sizes, I also won’t spend any money on Moccagatta or Marchese di Gresy anymore (too much oak and too inconsistent, respectively).
And I’ve always enjoyed Vietti - I think my wife and I were personally responsible for the inventory depletion of the '89 Lazaritto at one of our favorite Italian restaurants in Chicago during the late '90’s - early 2000’s
Bob
Of the ~3 Marchesi di Gresy wines I’ve been amazed at how uninteresting I found them for the price. I suppose the 1st time I tasted one (in a bar/enoteca in Barbaresco) I saw the price and perhaps expected too much, but the other experiences disappointed as well.
I quite liked Moccagatta when we visited (coming away with some chardonnay(!) and a 2006 Bric Ronchi IIRC), but yes the oaking was a minor concern. They did rather get blown away by the winery that followed - Albino Rocca, who didn’t put a foot wrong across the whole range (including a really smart Cortese).
I have always described myself as being fairly agnostic when it comes to the traditionalist versus modernist argument in Piemonte, although I will concede that my collection over the years has tended to lean traditional.
But I do have producers like Altare, Scavino and Clerico in my cellar, and have enjoyed their wines quite a bit over the years. To my palate, Moccagatta just takes the oak a little too far past where I think it needs to go - although in that regard, not as objectionable as, say, Voerzio or Rivetti/La Spinetta.
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) Bobby P has a lot to blame for here, as he’s brought a strident and strongly opinionated style into wine writing. It wasn’t about like or dislike with him, but about right and wrong. Hard opinion.