I drink a lot of the Produttori del Barbaresco wines. I find them to be outstanding values from the Nebbiolo Langhe to the single vineyard Riservas.
On a business trip to Italy this past week I had the chance to select the wines for our group at multiple dinners. Due to the limitations of expense reporting I had to keep things under control, and seeing wines from the Produttori on multiple lists gave me a thought. I would order a number of different bottlings that I had previously tried in the USA, to see if there were any notable differences when tasted on home turf in Torino.
Over the course of 3 dinners we tried the 2015 and 2016 Nebbiolo Langhe, as well as the 2013 and 2014 Barbaresco. (No Riservas were to be had…) Overall I thought that the Italian sourced bottles were remarkably similar to the bottles I had recently opened in the USA (less the 2015 Langhe which I do not personally own). Granted these were all essentially new release wines, so any long-term effects of transatlantic shipping would not have been apparent on my USA bottles, but it was comforting that each of the wines had similar “vibrance levels” in both places.
Comparatively the 2016 Langhe is a touch richer than the 2015, and seems more like a good vintage Barbaresco, while the 2015 fits more into its slot as a Nebbiolo Langhe, albeit a really good one. The major difference was between the 2013 and 2014 Barbaresco. The 2013 shows more depth on the nose, and has excellent mid-palate density. The 2014 is a very pretty wine (I loved the cherry and floral aromatics), but it’s much leaner on the palate. The 2014 is a nice wine, the 2013 is fantastic. I was able to snag an extra glass at the restaurant, and try both vintages side-by-side, and there was a stark difference. I only have a bottle or two of the 2013 (not sure how I missed it given that I buy essentially every year), and if I could trade my 2014s for half as many 2013s I would. I like the 2014, and it will make a lovely dinner wine (as it did last week), but the 2013 is really outstanding.
Nice reading this, as I picked a box including some Produttori Barbarescos from 2013, along with some other fantastic Nebbiolos, from a post office yesterday. Cheers!
Reading your post, I realized that I don’t recall seeing offers of the '13 Barbaresco normale around New York. I wonder why that is.
Your comparison of the '13 and '14 was interesting, too. Your impressions are similar to mine tasting Cigliuti’s '13s and '14s side by side. I’d hoped maybe '14 in Barbaresco was going to offer some undiscovered gems, because Barbaresco didn’t suffer as badly in the storms that year, but maybe that was wishful thinking.
The lab rats wanted to learn. They also wanted to be able to buy the wines if they liked them. They were quite happy, especially with the pricing of the Nebbiolo Langhe.
The 14 was pretty austere when I tried it too… need to try the Langhe.
Thread drift, I realized yesterday that I never saw any offers for the 2013 Riservas and now they’re priced pretty high where I can find them… did I miss the boat on these???
Allocations for everything but the Langhe Nebbiolo have been shrinking in NY since the 2013 normale became a thing. The Riservas were dribbled out on a case by case basis, with few if any retailers getting more than 12/btls of any single cru.
Does anyone know what the production was like in '13? Ken Vastola’s table with bottle totals for each cru only goes through '11. I’d be curious what the quantity of the normale was, too, in '13.
John, at least from looking at pictures online, production seems on par or even up from past vintages. For example, Rabaja = 17,040 bottles; Asili = 13,333 bottles; Pora = 16,666 bottles. But demand will clearly be high. It’s been five years since they declared riservas in a “classical” (that is, not “warm”) year. The market has changed a lot since then.
Thanks for the stats, David. Good point about the vintages. I’d forgotten that they didn’t produce the crus in 2010.
FYI, the '11 Produttori crus seemed to defy the vintage and had much more supporting acid than most of the '11s I tasted. I was not a fan of the vintage generally, but the Produttori crus were excellent. But the vintage certainly didn’t get the hype that '13 has.
Drinking the 14 normale right now. I’ve had the 13 before a couple times. I totally agree with your assessment. The 13 is a terrific wine, really an unbelievable value. The 14 is an okay wine but super lean. I’m all for earthy over fruity in Nebbiolo, but I’m in the 13 camp on this one, by a wide margin.
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