2008-My question here is “where did ANYBODY get the foolish notion that this vintage is the logical successor to 2004 and 2006?” Even Galloni offered up assessments like “good, not great” on his first pass, and “far better than expected” and “gracious, medium-bodied wines” on his final pass, while warning about inconsistent quality. I am betting that the “received wisdom” that John and I were discussing above missed the boat to some degree in every vintage after 2006, but this is a missed boat that would seem to be on the shoulders of consumers more than reviewers. In 2008, we can start the bidding with another mediocre Barbaresco vintage, one in which the Cortese Rabaja’ Riserva could end up being wine of the vintage. The sole exception would seem to be a decent set of Produttori Riserve. There was an even clearer split of opinion between Galloni and Tanzer, and on balance, the relatively unimpressed Tanzer had the best of it. The wines of Brovia, Burlotto and all of the modernists were no better than good. Vietti had a shockingly weak vintage. The G. Conterno Ceretta, still being called “Nebbiolo” at that point, was mediocre or worse, and both the Cascina Francia and Monfortino rather average compared to their siblings in 2004 and 2006. Giacosa made one very good but not legendary riserva. Aldo Conterno, Gaja and Sandrone were all solid but not great. It seems that the vintage’s reputation hangs only upon a few outperformers, like Elio Grasso, Mauro Mascarello’s Monprivato and Morissio, MT Mascarello’s Bartolo and G. Rinaldi Brunate-Le Coste, and in large part, because the latter two were so highly perfumed, delicate and accessible, both quite antithetical to the notion of a classic, age-worthy vintage. The median quality is decent, but with more quality swings than one expects in a strong vintage, and with no truly great wines. Like everyone else, I bought some 2008s, but I bought banking upon medium-term drinking. I am betting that there will still be a lot of unopened 2007s in my cellar when I drink my last 2008, and probably a few 2009s as well. And the greatest tragedy of all? Some loose talking by Galloni and the early accessibilty afforded by a lightweight 2008 vintage led poor Michael S. Monie to found the Church of the Blessed New Paradigm…
2009-the reviewers could not get out the “hot vintage” brush quickly enough. Yet another vintage of nothing special other than the Produttori Riserve in Barbaresco, but the 2009 Produttori were not far off the quality of the 2008s. In Barolo, if 2008 is, say, a “94+” vintage, then 2009 would likely be no worse than a “93+” vintage. Wines like the G. Conterno Ceretta and Cascina Francia strike me as being of comparable quality to their 2008 counterparts, despite there being no 2009 Monfortino. The 2009 Aldo Conterno wines are particularly strong, the Viettis better than the 2008s and the Sandrones of roughly comparable quality. Both 2009 Cappellanos and the Massolino Rionda Riserva are excellent wines that hint at, but do not promise, earlier-than-usual pleasure (yes, yes, I know…only so helpful for big Serralunga Baroli). Ditto Cavallotto’s two riserve. The 2009 Bartolo and G. Rinaldi Brunate-Le Coste were both wines worth collecting, largely a testament to the vastly improved winemaking that has resulted from the generational change, as well as the ability of the better wineries to manage temperature to excellent effect. It seems to me (and believe me, I never thought that I would live to say this!) that Galloni UNDERESTIMATED the 2009 vintage significantly, pooh-poohing it for not being 2006, 2007, 2008 or 2010, if I recall correctly. Well, I believe that it figures to be 2008 in quality, if not stylistically, and I prefer the best 2009s to their 2005 counterparts.
2010-if you follow the bouncing wine board ball, you will find a growing number of references to Piemontese producers saying that no, 2010 does not figure to be the vintage of the century for them, and not just because wine reviewers are already cranking up their campaigns to make 2013 the vintage of the century. It seems to me that all could agree that 2010 is a SPECIAL vintage, but entirely too quickly, the “received wisdom” got its ass in that “ol’ time religion” crack of “uber-classic vintage, built for eternity and a day, don’t touch a bottle until you have been dead for 35 years”. That is simply not panning out for the 2010 vintage overall, although it seems highly likely to be true for selected wines. One of the received canards appears to be that 2010 was a weak vintage in Barbaresco, simply because 2010 did not yield a set of Produttori Riserve. That notion may have been strengthened by the bizarre Giacosa decision to pass on the 2010 vintage. It seems to me that all of that headline-grabbing stuff overlooks things like Cortese’s strongest Rabaja’ normale yet, and sets of Gaja and Sottimano wines that best the 2011s across the board. A whole host of 2010 Barbareschi were, in fact, equal to or better than their 2011 counterparts. And so it goes.
And Barolo? Well, some, like Burlotto and Fratelli Alessandria with their Monviglieros, Brovia and Aldo Conterno made what may be their best wines to date. (At least the best wines that Aldo’s boys have made.) Sandrone, Vietti, Bartolo and G. Rinaldi again came up huge. The overall quality of the vintage is very high. The real question at this point is how many of these wines are built for the ages? Many of these wines drank really well on release. Big, beautiful fruit, most with good balance, some offering obvious structure, but others not so much. Some of the more structured wines have shut down and are sleeping now, but some wines (perhaps not the biggest guns, in fairness) are still partying. I have to believe that 2006 is much more closed at this point, and I know that 2004 and 2001 are. I bought a lot of wine in 2010, surely the last vintage for which I will do so, but until I see evidence that a majority of the 2010 Baroli go the way of 2006, 2004 and 2001, the jury is still out for me. I think that there is a very real chance that 2010 and 2007 could have more in common than 2010 and 2004. Time will tell.
A final thought: there are a fair number of 2010 Riserve, truly important wines, that are not even released yet, and some of which have not even been tasted from barrel. Hard to close the book on 2010 with so many pages missing…
2011-this vintage is also a work in progress, but very much one tarred with the 2009 brush. As noted above, Barbaresco should be relatively close in quality for 2011 and 2010, both better than many vintages before them. One interesting phenomenon is that 2011 is the first vintage with no Tanzer perspective, which I suppose matters to some and not to others, but it is surely a missing data point. Worse, Monica Larner seems to taste only what comes over the transom most of the time, as does Kerin O’ Keefe, so one never gets a complete set of scores from either. At this point in my life, and with my bad attitude about wine reviewers, none of that matters, but it does call the “received wisdom” into greater question than ever when consensus positions on some wines, like Roberto Voerzio’s, end up being only Galloni’s absurdly high and biased numbers. Along with that, those who look to Galloni to deliver the goods on Piemonte wines are now confronted with a guy who wants to convince wine buffs that he has viability as a Burgundy and California reviewer, and he spends increasing amounts of his time pissing off his subscribers by attending 100 Years of La Romanee tastings, sponsoring overpriced tasting events to keep the lights on and bullshitting at the “Davos of Wine”, instead of doing the one thing that he was once halfway decent at doing, and even had some passion for.
Against THAT backdrop, I think that there are some really, really good 2011 Baroli out there, and while I will not buy a lot of them, I am surely buying more than I thought that I would. I have already noted that Marta Rinaldi’s 2011 Tre Tine is one of the most impressive young Baroli that I have ever smelled and tasted (with the necessary qualification that not all great Baroli are going to show well young). A number of the 2011s appear to be better than their 2009 counterparts; G. Conterno’s Ceretta and Francia jump out in that regard. Giacosa is set to issue two red labels, the Asili already carrying a “96(+?)” from Tanzer. Sandrone and Vietti both made highly collectible wines. Even with a host of data points missing, it is relatively clear that the 2011 vintage has achieved the same across-the-board quality of most of the seven vintages that preceded it, even if the quality level is more in line with 2009, 2008 and 2005 than with 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2010. 2011 is still very much a “jury still out” vintage, and not solely, or even primarily, because it is the latest release, but rather, because the available information is becoming increasingly unreliable and untimely. There are some strong, collectible wines and some likely early drinkers, and the vintage seems to be selling surprisingly well, and at prices higher than many had hoped. It would be great to see there being some clearance sales as there have been for year like 2009 and 2005, but it could be that worldwide demand could put a damper on that. It should be fun to see what additional information flows in on the vintage, here and elsewhere…
