It may be hot & humid outside, but with the A/C cranked, one can still enjoy Nebbiolo in August! While I have hosted tastings in the past that focused on the single vineyard bottlings, I rarely do side-by-sides of the normale. Not sure why that is, but I stood these up in the cellar a couple weeks ago and I decided that take-out pizza was the order of the day for dinner, so what better opportunity to check out these wines.
I will try to get back and update this with any additional thoughts, but on the initial pop and pour, the 2004 was to me a clear favorite, followed closely by the 2006.
2004 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco- Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barbaresco (8/6/2022)
Red fruits, rose petals & tar on the nose. Good acidity on the palate, tart red fruit - very likable, and similar in terms of aging profile with my previous note in April, '21. If you have this in the cellar and havenāt tried it recently, do yourself a favor and check out a bottle.
2006 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco- Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barbaresco (8/6/2022)
Oh, this is nice. I had this twice in the same week back in March and liked it both times, and the wine today is in that same vein. That said, on the initial pour, itās not quite up to the standard set by the 2004. The wine really spreads out on the palate, but the nose doesnāt have the dimensions that the '04 shows on opening.
2008 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco- Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barbaresco (8/6/2022)
For whatever reason, this tends to be a forgotten vintage when it comes to my Produttori wines - I just seldom feel the urge to pull a bottle. And with the caveat that this is admittedly stiff competition, on opening this is also my least favorite wine of the quartet.
One of the strange things about this wine (and something that might be difficult to discern if I wasnāt drinking the wines side-by-side) is that this wine comes off as the least elegant wine of the foursome - it is definitely not ālight on itās feetā when it comes to palate presence.
Maybe Iāll like it better with food, but at the outset this is clearly the 4th horse in the race.
2010 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco- Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barbaresco (8/6/2022)
I will try to update this note after dinner - the wine is nice at this point, and I got an interesting spice note on the nose that was appealing, but I just had a great glass of the '04 and that is making for a pretty difficult comparison with this wine.
Nice work Roberto! I donāt have a lot of wine purchase regrets, but not buying enough Produttori would make the list. One of the all-time great QPRs IMHO.
But in terms of regrets, Iām sure Joanne regrets that you donāt have a few more Grateful Dead CDs in the house, right?
At any rate, after drinking the wines with pizza, my wife and I came pretty close in ranking the four suspects. We both agreed the 2008 was the weakest wine of the night, and the 2004 was the best. Where we differed was that she had a slight preference for the 2010 over the 2006. I, on the other hand, thought the 2006 was the wine that gained the most with air, and by the end of dinner I felt it was challenging the 2004 for supremacy
After buying quite consistently for nearly two decades dating back to ā96 or ā97 I stopped and gave away all the wines I had remaining (maybe 8-9 cases). The combination of rusticity, VA and tannin structure just no longer were something that I was particularly enamored with. I didnāt find them unpleasant but I didnāt find them to be wines I was interested in consuming.
Would have thought the 2010 would have should a little better because of the vintage.
Iāve only had the 06 out of your quartet and, out of 3 bottles already, liked the 1st one a year or 2 out of release best. Subsequent ones have shown as blowsy and without delineation, as well as being somewhat rustic and a bit tomatoey.
Can you describe the VA notes that you experienced with Produttori del Barbaresco? Itās something that I donāt associate much if, if any, with the ones from 90s and earlier vintages that Iāve had.
As for rusticity and tannin notes, itās not just you. Itās me too, but those are reasons why I like them as they all gloriously integrate with cellar time.
2010 was no where near as successful for Barbaresco as it was for Barolo. Unlike 2011, 14 and 18?, where the opposite was true, 2010 was erratic and in some cases disappointing for Barbaresco.
We just finished Sunday dinner - my wife tried a new recipe that had rigatoni, sausage, pancetta, pecorino and passata - it was off the hook
At any rate, we both tried day 2 pours of each of the wines, and I wouldnāt change my initial ranking. That said, while today I still prefer the 2004, I think in the long run the 2006 will eventually overtake it.
Not sure what to make of the 2010 - and I still have almost a case of this left. But over the past two days, it didnāt show any potential that it would eventually run with either the ā06 or ā04.
Hell, at my age I shouldnāt be making any plans for 2030
Chris, I donāt think thereās any rush here, and I will be checking in on these periodically, but I didnāt see the wherewithal in the wine to ultimately get to that level where the ā04 and ā06 currently reside.