Geez, Bill. What you describe sounds a lot like a new paradigm with Barolo!
For exactly one vintage, 2008, yes, indeed. (The other way that Galloni could have described the phenomenon would be, “Excuse me, I called 2008 a classic vintage, and I obviously had no idea what I was talking about. This happens in the fast-paced world of robo-tasting and thoughtless scribbling in order to meet deadlines and move wine for retailers.”) I am struggling to figure out where it disappeared to in 2010…
I bought a few 07s (Marcarini and Burlotto), but I’m fairly confident that 06s will be more interesting, better balanced wines over the long haul.
Your open-minded about the 97s? I haven’t had one in a while, but I thought a lot of those were hot and diffuse. I’ve never heard a lot of love for those.
My question to you would be simply “which 06s?” All of them? Not a chance. Most of them? I doubt it. Some of them, absolutely. The 2006 Monfortino, for starters… 
Like you, I am a buyer of the best 2006s, but also of the best 2007s and 2008s, without favoring any of those vintages over the others.
Yes on the 1997s, but again, wine by wine. Gaja’s Sperss, San Lorenzo and Tildin are brilliant wines, without qualification, the very best that he has made, and I suspect that the Conteisa Cerequio, which I have not tried, is the same story. Ditto the aforementioned Sandrone CB. Giacosa’s Le Rocche? Sadly no. One of his few career duds. The Monfortino is outstanding, possibly better than any Monfortinos between it and the 2004. Time will tell. Ditto Mascarello’s Ca d’ Morissio. Ditto Vietti’s Villero Riserva. I am curious about both 1997 Cappellano Baroli. There are surely some cooked lesser wines, and no doubt some that have fallen apart by now, but as I look at the list that I just set down, I could easily make the case that 1997 is a more important vintage than any in the 1998-2003 run. Who knew?
And hey, as to hearing love, you always want to talk to people who drink the wines and know what they are talking about. Groupthink is fine for the Squires board, but Nebbiolo is not much susceptible to it…
No, socking the wines away for 20-30 years to see what you’ve got is very much the old paradigm for Barolo.
Yes, but there ie a substantive difference why. Being that many if not most of the wines in the past were undrinkable in their youth, they were aged because they had to be. Now they are aged because one wants to do so. Therein lies the new paradigm.
They still have to be aged. Critics only need to pretend otherwise because you can’t get on a shelf talker with a tasting note like, “Damn, I think a tannin grenade just blew up in my mouth. Wanna know what I think of this? Ask me again in 30 years.”
Are you saying that the fruit being produced these days doesn’t consistently reach a higher level of phenolic ripeness, resulting in sweeter, much less harsh tannins, than in the past?
I tasted these wines from barrel to bottle and always found them to be very attractive. The only issue I have with the vintage are the elevated alcohol levels, which will annoy some more than they have me. The wines are fresh and balanced, will live 20-30 years, and will deliver ridiculous amounts of pleasure while we wait for our 2010s to peak. Any reasonable Barolo buying strategy should include some purchases, if not now when prices remain high, then when sales allow. My sense is that the support for this pricing comes from new markets soaking up modest but important quantities of wine from key producers. 2012 is a more problematic vintage, which will have some good wines, but should the world economy be healthy when the 13s are released, it will be 2010 all over again, though with yet another new pricing paradigm. That’s where the real shift is. As far as the Giacosas go, both the Santo Stefano and the Falletto were terrific, though the 2012 Asili surprisingly outclassed them both.
If you are interested in my additional thoughts they can be found here: 2011 Barolo: An Early Verdict - Simply Better Wines
I bought 1/3 as much 2011 as I did 2010, though I will backfill as opportunity arises and look forward to that 1/3 becoming about 1/2 as much.
Wow. This was more debate than I was bargaining for. I think a key takeaway for a more modest Barolo person like myself, is to buy good producers consistently with some variation should a particular year be a true outlier. This does change my buying pattern.
I still struggle with the difference in theoretical pricing pressures vs what we see in the market. Greg had some insight with new markets opening, but I am still surprised that wine prices (at the modest end of the spectrum) remain robust given we just had the vintage of the decade (or whatever). I was looking for an abatement in demand that combined with strong USD should have produced bargains. Maybe it still will.
No, Keith is saying what Keith is saying, which is quite clear, while you are rushing over to Vinous, cribbing the same two or three sentences that Galloni devoted to the subject and re-typing them here, over and over and over again. The rest of us are actually tasting the wines, Michael, rather than just bullshitting and parroting an inexperienced reviewer’s thoughts on the fly. We are tasting young, old and everything in between. You need to do that, and discover that great Nebbiolo does not lend itself to becoming smooth, easy-drinking young wine overnight, not for Galloni, not for you, not for me. Aging is not optional because Galloni needs to show that he can move wine off of shelves to survive. Your hero is the trade’s whore, Michael, trying to fake it until he makes it and to pay his mortgage, all the while pissing off his tiny subscriber base by tweeting about drinking somebody else’s DRC RC and La Tache for lunch every five minutes. He only uses 5 points of the 100-point scale for wines that matter because that is all that retailers and producers can use. He pimps modernist winemakers whom time has left behind at La Festa, and charges them five figures for the privilege.
Keith is absolutely right: Nebbiolo is a small niche product, an acquired taste and a hard sell at first for inexperienced wine drinkers. The hard-core modernists tried to create your new paradigm 30 years ago and failed. Even most of their wines ended up closing down, and all that most got out of the experiment was wines that fell apart relatively soon in Nebbiolo terms. And this just in: the people who buy the lion’s share of the best Nebbiolo-based wines have no interest in short-lived spoofed wines. They are happy to give the wines the time that they need and deserve, and then to reap the rewards. Only people who do not want that experience and do not understand the pleasures of properly aged Nebbiolo would even want your new paradigm. So far, that would appear to be you, Galloni and a handful of retailers who have a lot of Altare, Scavino and Clerico to move and tiny allocations of Giacosa, G. Conterno, Cappellano and G. Mascarello. Drink the wines, educate yourself, then fold your new paradigm four ways and put it where the sun don’t allow phenolic ripeness to shine…
John, it hardly matters at this late date, but that is not how it happened. People got juiced over the 1996s in the Piemonte after a string of 5 weak vintages following 1990, and then the hype over the 1997 vintage for all of Italy kicked in, just before Parker transitioned himself out of Italy altogether. (Indeed , there were no timely Brunello scores at WA because of that.) After that 2-year feeding frenzy, the 1998s and 1999s figured to be harder sells in any event, but there were early rumblings that 2000 would be the next great year in the Piemonte, and that pushed 1998 and 1999 even further into the background. 1998, as it turns out, deserved to stay in the dark, but after 2000 became more controversial than anticipated, and generated price increases as well, the 1999 vintage was suddenly born again, flying mostly on the tailwind of closeout pricing on even what later came to be recognized as the vintage’s two best wines, the Giacosa Le Rocche and the Monfortino. Indeed, the bargain pricing led to what seems to me to be a pimping of the vintage on the rebound, one not supported by the actual across-the-board quality of the wines. It would not be the first time that wines that were cheap and accessible were deemed to be excellent as well, for those reasons…
Bill - I tasted in the Langhe in 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004 and my recollection is rather different. No one was talking up the 97s much on any of my visits, and in 2002 people were scratching their heads at the WS assessment of 2000. They were dumbfounded by that. 1996 still was the benchmark for the producers I talked to at that point. (When you say “people got juiced” about the 96s I don’t know if you mean the press and consumers or the producers.)
I remember tasting 98s and 99s in 2002 and feeling that 99 was better, even though the wines were just released. They just had more stuffing. I’m not sure whether there was accepted wisdom yet, but I think that emerged as accepted wisdom pretty soon after that.
Kent, it is ever so! To be more responsive to your pricing concern, I would still expect there to be some closeout bargains on the 2009s and 2011s in the U.S. Remember, the 2011s are just getting there, and some 2010 late releases are not even out yet. On the other hand, I think that those who have been priced out in Burgundy and California are now looking to Italy in general and the Piemonte in particular, and it does not take but so many new buyers to absorb the relatively small production of Barolo and Barbaresco. Another factor is that increasing quantities of the best wines are being bought here, dominantly by foreigners which include Russians and South Americans in growing numbers, and never make it into the supply chain. Lastly, the 2010 halo effect that seems to have attached to the likes of Marta Rinaldi and M-T Mascarello has resulted in vigorous 2011 sales for both, despite the scores having dropped off significantly. The fact that there were no 2010 Giacosas may also have some trickle-down sales benefit to other leading wineries. The Piemonte is not quite the new Burgundy yet, but it is definitely well on its way…
Just once, it would be nice to see you broach this topic without thinking it necessary to launch a diatribe directed at AG. Aging is a relative term. No one is disputing that to enjoy great Nebbiolo optimally, aging is necessary. No one is denying that great Nebbiolo is likely to shut down at some point. But the fact that the weather is allowing a higher degree of both sugar and phenolic ripeness, as well as the winemakers being less inclined to include the “beaks and claws” into the fermentation tanks, makes for a product that while still having optimal levels of tannin for longevity, is much less harsh in its youth. I think it reasonable to conclude that because very long periods of time won’t be required for the resolution of tannins, the wines will probably be enjoyable at a considerably earlier age than was the norm in the past.
And FYI: I’m not presently a subsciber to Vinous.
John, what happened on the ground here was not relevant, in that producers’ views rarely drive sales and interest. I am speaking of Amercan reviewers and wine board denizens during the years in question…effectively, the pimps and johns of wine sales. (I am proud of my time as a john, by the way.) I clearly remember the flatly false story about Giacosa stating that the 1999 Le Rocche was riserva quality, but that he bottled it a year early because he needed the money, being told over and over again on the Squires board because it was what those who bought the wine on the cheap wanted to believe. (That was but a tongue-in-cheek quip to Tanzer that was completely lost on Tanzer’s American readers.) Giacosa did not make any 1999 riserve because he did not think that the vintage warranted it, and aside from the Le Rocche, Giacosa did not make particularly good 1999s, period. No question that 1999 ultimately got separation from 1998, and it is a better vintage, but sales were initially soft for 1998 and 1999 and many closeout bargains were had.
If your point was that the critics committed some howlers in their vintage assessments, we fully agree.
If your point is that there are some very good wines in every vintage, again no quarrel.
If you’re simply saying that one can never know with certainty how a vintage will develop, OK.
Yawn.
But you seemed to be advancing the proposition that, with a couple of exceptions, all the vintages of the past 20 years were of such good quality that it isn’t really possible to say one is better than the others: 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011* – who’s to say one’s better than the other?
A concise clarification would be useful.
- I couldn’t actual divine your opinion (?!) on 96, 97, 01 or 05.
John,
Generally speaking, Bill’s recollection of that era of Barolo sales is largely correct. The Spectator’s proclamation of 00’s greatness led to a lot of 99 closeouts (I should know, I bought). The 96 and 97 wines sold well, because 91-94 were difficult, and 95 was acceptable. Of the two 97s sold more easily, because the critical adjectives lavished by critics were, well, lavish, and along with Brunello, made the wines fly off of shelves. My experience with better 97s as they have matured is that they tightened up and showed a more classical streak as you would expect from Nebbiolo.
I don’t quite think I would deem 97 the most virtuous vintage from 96-03 - while I enjoy Bill’s blend of classicism and heresy, I still think that’s 01 for me, but the wines have not been generous post-adolescence - I think you’ve been in on some relatively recent tastings that have showed wines hard as nails, and I could well turn out to be wrong! That said, some of the “lesser” vintages of that era (I.e. Some 98 and 99) can make for interesting drinking now, and in some cases for the foreseeable future.
I think what we’re also seeing is a Burgundian maturity coming to a region that was so previously dependent on vintage hype for sales. The quality gaps from year-to-year are more narrow than before, and consumers are evolving past “Vintage of the Century!” hype to a more nuanced understanding of sites and producers.
I did not advance said proposition. You apparently choose to receive your wisdom when the reviewers issue it, or, in the past, when you tasted at the wineries many years ago. I say that neither is particularly reliable when it comes to distinguishing vintages rather than individual wines, that the wisdom is quite often not truly received until 20+ years after the vintage, and that the unprecedented median quality of the past 20 years has made picking winners among vintages more difficult than ever. (That is not to say that distinctions cannot be made and that all vintages are of more or less equal quality. I did suggest that, for the early going of the 20-year run, vintages 1996-2000, received wisdom got none of the vintages right on the first try.) Add to that reviewers in search of the Holy Grail of declaring their own 1982 Bordeaux vintage (Suckling in 1997 and 2000, Galloni in 2007, 2008, 2010 and already gearing up for 2013 in Barolo, not to mention the 2013 Napa attempt now paying at a Vinous near you), and I submit to you that “received wisdom” about vintages, almost always flawed for a time except perhaps for consensus great vintages, is a slippery slope at best. Concise enough for you? Yawn back at you.
Jim, for clarity, I said that I COULD make the case for 1997, but I did not, reason being that, despite the classic top guns that have emerged, I doubt that the median quality of 1997 would equal that found in a more problem-free vintage like 2001. On the other hand, for me, even accounting for any stewed wines at the bottom of the heap, 1997 has proven vastly superior to 1998 and 1999 so far. The history of critical perception, reviewer and consumer, of the 1996-2001 stretch of vintages seems to me checkered and ill-informed at best, but the intellectual reward of Nebbiolo-based wines is that the jury is still out on all of those vintages save 1998…