TN: 2006 Produttori di Barbaresco normale - Wowsers!

I was part of the search party that hunted down the lots of the 2006 Produttori “torre” (aka normale) Barbaresco that consisted of wine originally intended to bottled as single cru riservas. (They aged the wine intended for single vineyard bottlings until 2009, then decided to sell it all as normale, after bottling some of the lots that were always intended to be normale.) After a lot of sleuthing here, it seemed that lot 9.105 was one of the riserva blends, and I scored a case at Astor Wines. This is the first bottle I’ve opened.

It was worth every bit of the effort, and the wait. This wine has one of the most powerful and sustained noses of any wine I’ve had in recent memory. Decanted about 40 minutes ahead of drinking, it smacks you in the face with intense rose hips, a smokiness and a mixture of plums and bing cherries. Three hours after the first pour, that nose is just motoring on.

When you taste this, you know why the nose is so intense. In the mouth, it is concentrated – more than most Produttori riservas. The fruits are ripe and rich, but at perfection – nothing jammy here. The same plum and cherry profile shows on the palate. The richness is counterbalanced – tensioned – by a backbone of tannins whose rough edges have just begun to come off. (Imagine a freshly cut board whose edges have been lightly hand-sanded to protect against splinters.)

This has staying power on the finish, too, with the same concentration of fruit you get in the mouth – plush, ripe yet with a refreshing zip of acid and tannin. The tannic grip carries on after the last gulp.

Those powerful scents still emerge from the glass when it’s drained. I can’t think of a dry wine that had such persistent aromas.

Wowsers! 93++ An utter pleasure tonight with merquez lamb sausage pizza and eggplant-tomato salad. But this is early in its window, without a lot of tertiary development yet. I’d guess this will give even more pleasure – and a different, more complex form – a decade from now.

What an astonishing value at $26 in 2010.

Envious! Never saw those 9.105’s here in Hawaii.

I had to fan out across NYC and read a very large number of 6-point lot numbers to find mine.

These sort of notes are so bad for buying freezes, except that finding these Riserva lots is probably impossible at this point.

Have you had the normal normale as a comparison?

Thanks.

I think I will have to dig out a bottle of the regular version.

“Hey boss, boss! It’s that weird guy in again, the one who keeps mumbling weird decimal numbers and claiming he needs to find the special juice”.
“Is he in the same place as before?”.
Yes, hanging around the Piemonte section, and he’s picking up bottles of the same wine and putting them back again. Only this time he’s grabbed one of the bottles and is grinning like a maniac and chanting nine point one zero five. Wait…He’s coming over here with it! … I’m scared boss".
“Relax kid, it’s New York City, there ain’t no normal here. Just take his money and let him have his precious bottle”

John
I don’t think 9.105 was one of the riserva blends.
I remember seeking out the lots starting in 10 as these were bottled later and the amount of riserva juice was increased

http://www.finewinegeek.com/produttori/2006_Barbaresco.html

So you’re saying poor John ran all over town, only to end up with the wrong one? Only on Wineberserkers…

Someone contacted me this morning about Ken’s list this morning.

I’ll have to go find the old thread where people were trying to sort this out. As I recall there were different views at the time about which lots were which, and a heated debate. I think I relied in part on some info Greg dal Piaz provided on line after talking to Aldo Vacco, the winemaker.

If what I have is all non-riserva juice, then the riserva lots must be really, really awesome!

Ian Dorin said at the time that 9.105 was one of the riserva lots:

If it’s not riserva, I’ll sue Ian.

I have a ton of 9.097, a non-Riserva lot, and it’s freaking delicious.

My cynical nature says that Vacca spins tales of the lots to get people to chase them.

Ian is usually spot on, so hope that is the case here. Also, hoping that the lots beginning in 10.XX include the riserva juice as these are what I purchased.

2010 also includes the SV fruit in the normale but this decison may have been made earlier than the 2006 vintage, so all the 2010 lots may be the same.

The good thing about WB is that I’m sure you’ll be able to obtain legal representation without too much trouble. Who knows, perhaps your inbox is filling up with private messages even as I write this.

I felt this way for a few years. I stopped buying the wines until the 11 vintage because of this charade. Of course I now feel like an idiot. Not the first time for that.

Why was this cynical or a charade? If you’ve ever met Aldo Vacco, I think you’d have a hard time making those accusations.

If they had wanted to maximize revenue, they’ve have bottled the crus. They made the decision not to relatively late. You can picture what happened: Visitors were told that and asked what they were doing with those lots and they were told that they were being blended into the normale, but some lots of the normale were already sold and out the door. I’m sure Vacco never imagined a bunch of nutty Americans (like yours truly) would go crazy trying to track down the lots with riserva fruit.

That’s pretty awesome. Was wondering why the CT scores were so varied. Brig got one of my bottles in a poker game back in the day, and I have another I’ll have to check on.

Uh… there are other explanations for that that don’t apply just to the 2006 Produttori.

John,

I am an incurable cynic. I would believe Christ himself had a hidden agenda.

This all begs a side by side tasting…

I said I was an idiot.