Is Piemonte Going To Be The Next Hot Area?

It produces word class wines at still relatively affordable prices compared to its counterparts elsewhere. With a string of excellent vintages, quality is very high. And although there hasn’t been a decent book on the area published in a long time, it seems to be getting significantly more attention. What do you see in the short term future (the next 5 years) for Piemonte?

I sure hope not… but I think it will be. My guess is that Piedmonte will be the next big thing, followed by Rioja.

Yes.

GOING to be???


What I fear is that increased demand by folks who don’t understand the aging requirements of classic styles will start a new de Grazia-fication trend.

Very good things. No wine region can match them, and most can’t even come close. They make both everyday wines and stunning world class, elite wines with equal success. They have wines to go from the start of the meal to the end. Drink now wines and wines for your big days. And they do all this with incredible reliability and fair prices. Next hot area? I am not so sure, it might not be cool and weird enough. But it will be Piedmont. And that is enough for me.

G. Conterno and Giacosa and Sandrone and Gaja can be the locomotives that pull along all the rest. Absolutely the next thing that goes nuts…

Uh! Let’s hope everybody concentrates on these leaving the others alone…

Actually this was several years ago. Prices have increased for the big names already.

Like I said…“GOING to be???”

The truth of the matter is that it’s the closest thing for big collectors in terms of style and taste to Burgundy (which will only get painfully more expensive), and it’s under priced for the most part. There has been a huge rise in the number of more classic producers (modern producers have been on the decline for a while) that have caught fire in the last few years, and it’ll just add more names to the short list of wines that shoot up in price.

The number of old Nebbiolo-based wines trading for four figures in the secondary markets has increased exponentially in recent years, and my sense is that has happened without the sort of feeding frenzy that comparable age and quality Burgundy has experienced. Retailers like Rare Wine Company have been able to source modest quantities of much of the old and rare stuff, but the pricing has been on a steady upward march for a long time, and the high cost and low availability of the wines of the legends like Giacosa and G. Conterno has pulled the prices of the next tiers upward, as well as fueling the discovery of a number of previously under-appreciated traditional producers such as Cappellano and G. B. Burlotto. In the latter situation, the prices are often quite reasonable…the problem is more often finding the wines. That said, for those prepared to pay $500 for a bottle of wine, you can taste some of the Piemonte’s, and the world’s, finest wines, and even with recent price inflation, no other region on earth can touch the quality at that dollar level. Comparable-quality Bordeaux and Burgundies cost two to six times as much…

It is no coincidence that there are strong links between Barolo and Burgundy. Laurent Ponsot and Roberto Conterno are close friends I understand, and there is another big name that is close with Giacosa (I believe it was Rousseau, but not 100% sure). And there are others.

At previous visits in Piedmont, I have noticed always a lot of Burgundy in the private / for personal use sections of the Piedmont producers. I have heard numerous stories of people visiting a producer in Piedmont, staying over for dinner and the host then opens an old La Tache (next to some old Barolo’s).

For me, for instance, holding a bottle of Monfortino and looking at it, it just oozes tradition and ‘old world’. There is something about it that I do not have with a lot of other bottles (so imagine how I felt when I got a double magnum 2006 Monfortino… . Amongst the most treasured bottles in my cellar. If I had to pick a Burgundy comparable, it would be the Rousseau Chambertin. You recognize from a distance, there is no other label like it.

Yes, I think Piedmonte is hot and will be hotter. With the issues currently at Giacosa, and the big question whether that estate will ever return to its former glory, there at the moment is only one iconic label (note, I am not saying that this is the only top barolo being made from a pure quality perspective) and that is Monfortino.

And it is scarce and to make things worse it is not being produced every year. The perfect ingredients for irrational pricing going forward.

This certainly could come under the heading: We ain’t seen nothing yet. Since many if not most of the wines are produced in relatively small quantities, demand could escalate prices many times over their current level and make availability difficult.

And that Jeremy Seysses fellow was sniffing around these parts this fall, probably trying to pass off his Burgundies on unsuspecting locals who could not tell the difference…

That’s a little freaky since Giacomo is long dead.

Yes, wrote down the house name without thinking… Clearly it is Roberto! Will amend.

I think you’re late to the party here. Piedmont is no longer a sleeper region. The prices on trophy wines like Giacosa and G. Conterno have shot up, the range of producers available (at least on the East Coast) is many times longer than it was a decade ago, and wine lovers who never looked outside France before now take a serious interest in Barolo and Barbaresco.

Beyond nebbiolo, you can now find offbeat indigenous grapes like pelaverga, timorasso, grignolino and freisa in many good stores.

Luckily, there are lots of good values in B and B still, not to mention the lesser grapes, so it’s still a great area to watch for those of us who aren’t looking to burn off excess cash. The good news is that there are still many very good producers who aren’t well distributed in the U.S., so the supply of good wine for the U.S. market isn’t exhausted yet.

This year we’ll see the hot producers gain momentum as they receive ever higher scores and ever more attention from collectors. It should be the turning point for the Burgundification of Piedmont. I think we’ll see price increases of about 50% for the great traditionalists, Monfortino having shown the way. The next tier will see similar increases, maybe 35% or a bit more. The rest of the pack will slowly filter their way to where they should be driven as much by traditional critical acclaim, which will remain more influential at the top of the market, as by vocal consumers.

I spent a few hours this morning considering what I want to buy. Both to be ready to taste them again when I’m next in Piedmont, and to buy them when they show up at retail.

Ummm, not so sure about that. The Giacosa winery is on probation at the moment, and if the quality does not return, you can kiss scores, demand and price hikes goodbye at one of the three most important addresses. Monfortino pricing is already inflated, and like the stock market, might have a bit more froth left, but it is the only wine well-positioned for grand cru Burgundification, if you will. I see it as the only Piemonte wine that draws cruiser-class, Rudy-esque buyers at this point. Gaja’s wines have generally sold at a discount to retail, occasionally a sharp discount, and while the quality is consistently high, Gaja has not fired a shot heard 'round the world since the 1997 vintage, and his prices were high to begin with. And with most of the interest focused on traditional wines these days, the modernists do not figure to fuel much of anything.

Against that backdrop, your Burgundification, if it is to happen at all, will necessarily have to happen at the equivalent of the premier cru and village level. That seems to me a mixed bag, due to many factors, including recent changings of the generational guard. Cappellano is no longer of interest to many with Baldo gone. Vajra is upticking, so I suppose there is some room to run on prices there. Both of the Mascarellos and G. B. Burlotto could lead the charge, I suppose, but Sandrone not so much and Voerzio, Altare and the other La Morraistas not at all. I see demand increasing, and prices with it over time, as has already happened at the best addresses, but a revolution? I doubt it. The greatest demand should be driven by ratings and traditional style, which is only part of the picture. Modernist wines will get the scores and hold their own, but do not figure to lead the revolution. The only wild card that could fuel crazy prices is short supply. That is today’s driver of the Burgundification of Burgundy. Gaja alluded to shortages being on the way in the Piemonte, but I am not sure that the evidence supports that yet. The shortages I see are in Monfortino and old and rare only right now…