I opened up a 2008 Brovia Barbera d’Alba Sorì del Drago tonight to pair with dinner. After just a little bit of air the nose on this wine is quite inviting, offering hints of dried herbs, flowers, and a mixture of red fruits. The palate mostly shows the fruits, which come across darker than the nose (something more akin to plum rather than strawberry and pomegranate), along with the expected acid and some noticeable tannin. A very nice wine that paired well with dinner. Acquired from Rare Wine Company for $26.
Anyway, I don’t drink a huge amount of Barbera, but enjoyed this one quite a bit. The others I’d had were much cheaper and drank that way. While I don’t expect to be blown away by any given Barbera, it appears to be a grape that can yield some interesting wines. What producers do you find of interest for this grape?
Berserker Recommended Barbera:
Altare Larigi
Braida’s (Giacomo Bologna) Ai Suma, Uccellone and Bigotta (all Asti)
Sottimano
G F Mascarello
Cappellano (Alba)
Bruno Giacosa
Corino Ciabot du Re
Coppo Pomorosso (Asti)
Vajra (both the normal and the superior)
Brovia - Sori del Drago and Ciabot del Fi - Barbera d’ Alba
Sandrone
Vietti - Barbera d’ Alba - Scarrone and Scarrone VV
Vietti - Barbera d’ Asti - Le Crena
G. Conterno - Cascina Francia and Cerretta (both Alba)
Paitin - Barbera d’ Alba - Campolive and Serra (name may have changed)
Prunotto - Pian Romualdo (Alba), Nizza Costamiole (Asti), and Fiulot (Asti)
Cantina del Pino Berbera d’ Alba
Conterno Fantino Vignota
Brezza Cannubi Muscatel
La Spinetta Gallina (Alba), Bionzo Superiore (Asti) and Ca’ di Pian (Asti)
Giuseppe Rinaldi’s Barbera
More basic:
Vietti - Tre Vigne - Barbera d’ Alba and Barbera d’Asti
A. Oberto - Barbera d’ Alba
Castello di Neive - Barbera d’ Alba - Santo Stefano
Domenico Clerico - Trevigne - Barbera d’Alba
I love Barbera. Good ones can be so vibrant and pure. Also, food friendly and relatively cheap. I like:
Vietti
Sottimano
G F Mascarello
Cappellano
They all differ and have a few different ones, but give me a good spectrum of the grape and it always goes good with spaghetti and meatballs! Most are under $30 with a few more than that.
An old Sandrone I had was very nice (apparently these things can age too). A second bottle was off though. Got four more…
1999 Luciano Sandrone Barbera d’Alba- Italy, Piedmont, Alba, Barbera d’Alba (9/28/2014)
Are you kidding me? This is fantastic stuff. Fragrant, and still very primary nose of roses, red cherries, and plums. Perhaps this does come off a bit high-toned though. The palate hasn’t lost its freshness either, with the same lively fruit (albeit with some stewed character). Soft tannins. Nonetheless, served chilled, this is refreshing and downright delicious. No deterioration at all on the second day, with perhaps even some improvement – the high-toned acidity is gone, and there’s a slight bit of earthiness that now emerges. (90 pts.)
Despite my trying, I can’t seem to warm to Barbera. I love Italian wine and very much enjoy high-acid, high-tannin wines, but most Barbera wines to me taste overly tart and out of balance. Maybe I’m just drinking the wrong ones. As far as everyday Piedmont wines are concerned, I much prefer Dolcetto.
With Vietti, try both the Scarrone (serious, oaked version from a vineyard beneath the cantina in Castiglione) and the Asti (much fruiter, unoaky Asti style).
The G. Conterno can be excellent, but the freight on that has gone up so much, you can drink Barolo for the price.
A couple different people in Piemonte basically expressed the same sentiment to me. But I’ve tried, repeatedly, to develop a taste for Dolcetto – Lord knows I’d jump off the Golden Gate Bridge if a Piemontese winemaker told me to – and just can’t. In fact, I actively dislike it. I’m not sure why. It’s probably my least favorite Italian wine. Obviously it’s something wrong with me.
Barbera on the other hand… I love. It’s my go-to wine by the glass at mid-range Italian restaurants. Almost always great with food. In addition to the standard list of top barberas (G. Conterno, Vietti, etc.), I bought the 2008 Coppo Pomorosso on the recommendation of Klapp and found it to fantastic. There have been lots of threads on Barbera though, and given that some of the most knowledgeable posters on Italian wine aren’t around much anymore, I’d recommend checking them out in addition to what information you get here:
True, but that’s like saying that the price of Monfortino has gone up so much you might as well drink Grand Cru Burgundy for the price. I don’t think Barolo and Barbera are interchangeable. Barolo is my absolute favorite wine in the world, but I think the Cascina Francia Barbera is still occasionally worth the price when the situation calls for Barbera and I still want a high-end wine.
To those already mentioned I’d add Vajra (both the normal and the superior) and the Brovia Brea (Brea is the “home” vineyard their Ca’Mia Barolo comes from), which is in the richer style.
For the Brovia, Brea is no longer the name. Now called Ciabot del Fi. And it is to me better than the Drago. Barbera can be many things depending on the style and price of the wine. From everyday simple drinkers at $12 to incredibly complex wines that are equal/superior to Barolo and Burgundy. And many things in between. The one problem I have with Barbera is when it becomes to sexy. Too much extraction, too much oak. And the grape and place are lost. Sometimes there is a fine line. This is a list of some of the best and some are pushing the line.
Brovia - Sori del Drago and Ciabot del Fi - Barbera d’ Alba
Vietti - Barbera d’ Alba - Scarrone and Scarrone VV
Vietti - Barbera d’ Asti - Le Crena
G. Conterno - Barbera d’ Alba - Cascina Francia and Cerretta
Paitin - Barbera d’ Alba - Campolive and Serra(name may have changed)
Cantina del Pino Berbera d’ Alba
Some other good ones, but more basic, mostly below $20 retail.
Vietti - Tre Vigne - Barbera d’ Alba and Barbera d’Asti
A. Oberto - Barbera d’ Alba
Castello di Neive - Barbera d’ Alba - Santo Stefano
Domenico Clerico - Trevigne - Barbera d’Alba
Good topic and discussion. Barberas are great and are not always mere aperitif wines. Last Saturday we had an Italian evening and one of my wines was a 2008 La Spinetta (Rivetti) Barbera d’Alba Gallina. The CT notes had this as a bland wine but, even with a decent decant, this was a big, brawny, rich, tarry beast that everyone, tasting it blind, had as a Nebbiolo, Barolo or Barbaresco. Typically great QPRs too.
That’s me to a tee. I love all the other wines of Piemonte, I’ve loved visiting there, but Dolcetto just doesn’t work for me. People always say it’s fruity and easy to drink, but I always find it grapey and with a pronounced bitterness to the finish. I want to like it, but I can’t finish a glass.
Barbera to me is the ultimate low ceiling / high floor red wine. Rarely bad, never great. I perfectly enjoy it, and I buy it from time to time, but it never comes close to thrilling me. They seem fairly similar to each other as well, other than winemaking differences in ripeness and oak. It reminds me of NZ sauvignon blanc in that respect, a lot of pretty good wine that is a safe call but not an exciting one.
And that’s not meant to be damning; it’s nice that you can decide you’re only spending $30 for a NZ sauv blanc or only spending $40 for a Barbera off a restaurant wine list and be pretty confident you’re going to get a solid wine that will go pretty well with what you’re eating. The wine doesn’t always have to steal the show.
I updated the OP to list the recommended Barbera from this and the linked threads. They are in no particular order or categorization other than Gary’s recommended lower end ones. I’m not planning on a massive list of all producers or anything like the Barolo/Barbera thread, just wanted to compile the suggestions to avoid having to read through everything repeatedly.
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