My monthly blind tasting group sampled eight 2016 Barbarescos last night, priced from $35 to $62. Not the heavy hitters, but a decent cross section by site, cru versus normale and winemaking style.
These showed much better than the wines at the big Jancis Robinson-Chambers Street walk-around tasting last month. (The only wine I tasted both places was the Moccagatta.) Better stemware and being able to sit down with them over two hours or so with food available made a big difference. The wines are still pretty closed, though, and thus somewhat difficult to get a good read on, so my top scores were relatively conservative at this point.
I opened the bottles about an hour ahead, and decanted half of each into another bottle for serving. (We use a set of identical bottles to preserve the anonymity during the tasting.) We poured the rest of each bottle into its serving bottle shortly before we began. That seemed to work well to open these up.
Listed in order of the group’s ranking, with the village from which the fruit came in parentheses:
Cascina delle Rose – Tre Stelle (Barbaresco) $60
I was less keen on this than the group, ranking it 5th. I found this a bit less transparent – less precise – than most, and with less fruit. Good depth, but a little lacking in fruit at this stage, and no very distinct elements. Over the evening, my scores ranged from 88 to 90-. This was a group favorite, though, with several first-places and at least one second-place vote.
Sottimano – Pajoré (Treiso) $60
Beautiful, complex nose, with just a touch of oak emerging with air. (After a relatively long/traditional 25-day maceration, the wine ages 24 months in Francois Freres barriques, 15% new.) This was pretty reserved at first, and a little lighter in body than some, but beautifully balanced. The oak didn’t interfere with the nebbiolo character. Fairly tannic on the finish, but balanced.
Produttori di Barbaresco normale (Barbaresco) $35
As good as you would expect/hope for in an outstanding year. Fairly ripe sour cherries on the nose, and quite intense. There was something almost oak-like at one point, though it sees no small oak. A quinine scent emerged later that I liked. Pretty concentrated in the mouth, with red fruits and an appealing sweet thread. I got that quinine note in the mouth, too – both flavor and bitterness. Long, somewhat tannic (as one would expect) but balanced finish. Though the price has risen in recent years, this is still the real thing and a great value.
Cigliuti – Serraboella (Neive) $62
I ranked this first, scoring it 92+, but I wanted to like it more, given how good Cigliuti’s ‘13s were, and its ’16 Langhe Nebbiolo. Darker in hue, and very intense on the nose. Black cherry hints there. Very concentrated in the mouth – more like a stereotypical Barolo, with pretty ripe darker fruits (think black cherry or plum). Masculine. Chocolate notes. Long, dense, ripe finish.
I felt I might have liked this better if it were just a tad less ripe and a tad less concentrated. At the price ($62), I’ll pass. I like the Produttori as much, and I liked the $40 Cortese Rabajà I tasted at the Jancis/Chambers St. event even more.
Castello di Verduno normale (Barbaresco) $42
Lovely, complex, rather feminine nose (more reddish fruits, less ripeness). Fairly concentrated in the mouth, but not that interesting. Their Rabajà-Bas cru bottling is a big step up from this.
Barale – Serraboella (Neive) $40
Somewhat of a disappointment, given how Chambers Street has lauded these wines. Lighter in color, with a nice reddish-fruited scent that I called “piercing” and “crystalline.” Medium-light bodied that seemed balanced early on but seemed to thin out with air – the opposite of what I’d expect. A tad dry on the finish – not enough fruit. My score dropped from 90 to 88 (averaged in the table below). This might flesh out with time. That can happen with seemingly light, high-acid wines like this. But I don’t have any history with these wines, so I’m not sure.
Moccagatta – Bric Balin (part of Muncogota) (Barbaresco) $47
I used to like these wines, which in the past showed some oak without being dominated by it.
Perhaps my tastes have changed. Or perhaps they’ve gone to the dark side. In any event, this was a crime against the nebbiolo grape. “Pow! Oak!” I wrote of the aroma. All oak, no nebbiolo. Dill even emerged with air. All oak all the time on the palate, too. “Oak sits on top of the wine,” someone else said. It obliterated any character from the grape. Were it not for the tannin and acid, you might have guessed this was a Napa cab. All oak and tannin through the finish, too.
In the end, this only narrowly edged ahead of the badly corked De Forville for last place in the group’s rankings! What a pity!
FYI, this wine showed the same way at the tasting last month, and Subu Ramachandran posted on a similar impression from another recent tasting.
De Forville normale $35
I was a bit rushed when I first opened these and didn’t screen them carefully enough for corkiness. This wine had a good dose of it. It’s a pity because it seemed that there was a very solid, balanced wine with good concentration beneath the TCA. Their '16 nebbiolo is killer stuff, too. Sigh.
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