Ok, I did a little research on when a style change happened at Sottimano. Per Vinous/Galloni this seems to have happened by the 2010 vintage. For that vintage about Sottimano he wrote: “A focus on longer macerations done at lower temperatures, drawn-out malos and less reliance on new oak is beginning to pay serious dividends.”
In the summary for 2012/13 he added “The 2013s spent 30 days on the skins, followed by slow, native malos (the Pajoré and Currà took a year and half to finish) in neutral French oak, where the wines were on their lees with no SO2 and just one racking prior to bottling. In order to make wines in this distinctly Burgundian style, Sottimano keeps the cellar very cold.”
Thanks Antonio! So it seems that considering Sottimano as overly modern/over-oaked/clumsy is old news, or at least only relevant pre-2010 or even earlier. In the last decade the wines have seemed to only steadily increased in quality. A vertical might be called for.
Which other notable Barolo/Barbaresco producers have made a stylistic shift away from barriques and more modern stylings? I think I read that Paolo Scavino has.
It would make sense, given the strong demand for producers like G Mascarello and Vietti.
I think the last vintages of Sottimano I’ve tasted have been 2015’s (Basarin and Cottá). While not super-modern or gloopy, I find them still somewhat toasty and oaky. Definitely nothing traditionalist. Felt more like modern-leaning or middle ground, tops.
I believe that they still use about 15% new oak. We discussed this in the traditionalist vs. modern thread. I have enjoyed the Nebbiolo Langhe, which may not see new oak. I was considering a purchase of, IIRC, 2016 Pajore, at a good price, but saw CT notes indicating the wines showed the influence of oak. For me that was enough not to buy. I’d try on someone else’s dime, but I’m not buying.
I think the problem with that logic is that producers may not spend for newer oak on their NL but may do so for their more prestige bottlings. So a producer could make a more traditional NL than their Barolo or Barbaresco.
That may have been true in 2016, but according to AG as of 2019/2020 it is all aged in cask. I have not tasted the 2016s. The 2019/2020 Fausoni I tasted show no sign of new oak.
They are imported by Skurnik, whose website says “fermentation is done in oak, of which about 30% is new, followed by 18-20 months in neutral barrique.”
Tech sheets for the 19 and 20 Pajore say “10-15% of the barrels used for aging this wine are new; the remaining 90% have previously been used up to 4 times.” Tech sheets for Cotta, Curra, and Basarin all say the same. Fausoni says 10%.
It certainly seems like some of the oak is new from that. Other importer websites mirror those numbers. Those could be old data but I’ve found the Skurnik website typically reliable.
In the other thread’s discussion of these wines Robert Panzer weighed in to defend the wines and my recollection was that he confirmed the oak but felt it did not detract, comparing the fact that DRC uses 100% new oak.
It might be true, but on the other hand, a high quality entry wine/LN says a lot about a winery…
Besides that I’m trying to think of a producers making very high quality LN but manage to make unbalanced oaked Barolo or Barbaresco wines today (doesn’t match with the attention to details it takes or make a high quality LN). I can’t think of anyone that I have tried, though I don’t rule it out but I guess that would be more of the exception.
Different varieties take barriques in different ways. Small wood had always been the tradition in Burgundy, but not in the Langa; I think Nebbiolo is much more transparent to new wood than Pinot.
I imagine that is outdated, but having not visited the winery myself to ask I can’t say for sure. Galloni’s reviews from a few years ago mention they still used barriques, and his review of the 2019/2020 says they’ve moved to all cask. He is usually reliable for this sort of info. The Wine Advocate review of the 2020 Fausoni also says it was done in cask.
The other thing that appears to have changed according to Galloni’s reviews is the number of days on the skin. In 2020, it was up to 60 days, in 2015/2016 it was 40 days, in 2013-2014 it was 30 days.
Either way, the proof is in the wine and IMO the '19/'20 vintage from Sottimano is clearly worth a try. The fact that the winemaking has been in flux and they have a bad reputation for being oaky wines in prior vintages is reflected in the price - $60-70 a bottle for some really great wines IMO.
Like I said, I’d try them if the chance presented itself, but wouldn’t buy them myself to find out. There are already far more wines I want to buy than I actually can, particularly in the promising '19-'21 Piedmont vintages.
Sottimano’s website photos of the cellar are all either barriques or puncheons (hard to tell when there’s no sense of scale). Their notes say ‘wood’ without specifying which kind.
When I visited Paolo Scavino last year, they said they’ll taste and assess. Some wines/vintages they’ll use the wine they put in barriques, sometimes they’ll blend it with what goes in botti and others they’ll sell the wine that was in the barriques. So it all really depends on how they think the wine shows.
Produttori di Carema fits the bill to me for a kindler, gentler Nebbiolo. It’s a great balance of still being Nebbiolo, but almost Burgundian in style.
This is from old memory and could definitely be wrong, but I visited in 2006 or so, and I recall at that time they used the same barrique aging regimen on all their Barolos, saying that by holding that constant, you can isolate the site differences between their wines. So basically the opposite theoretical approach to what you describe today.
I think the wines at that time were solidly modernist, but not freakishly so, and of good quality other than whatever you might not like about the stylistic part.
Now you’re making me remember differently, because that is definitely correct. Apologies, it’s now 1am.
I think what I was recalling that the % of new barriques and which size of barrique is what they reassess each year. They put each wine in all different sizes and taste along the way seeing what shows best and select that, selling off the rest. And that % of new oak has been dwindling.
I picked up some of the Antoniotti* as it one of my favorite Italian reds. I just realized that this producer is my largest Italian holding followed by Vallana.
La Ca Nova’s various bottlings (both the base and cru) are usually pretty darn silky and drinkable, even when young. I usually try to give them 3-5 years from release, and have no interest in aging them further. I also like the Produttori di Carema mentioned above. If you happen to buy from Garagiste, I’ve found that most of their private label “Ca Rozzeria” wines are pretty great young as well.
