What makes a certain vintage that is great for barolo but not so good for barbaresco or vice versa?
My understanding is that both wine are made from the same Nebbiolo grapes but grown in different regions. How can the same weather condition in one area makes such a difference between the two?
The elevations and soils are different, and the weather can be different, especially in terms of hail. The truism is that Barbaresco is more femine (the “queen of wines”) and Barolo more masculine (the “king of wines”), but put up an old bottle of Gaja’s San Lorenzo over a lightweight La Morra Barolo, or some of Giacosa’s greatest against most anybody’s Barolo and you can give the lie to that trusim in a hurry. Barolo got a head start on Barbaresco, and it is three times the size and production, which allows for more Barolo choices. Others will chime in…
Bill
I understand that Barolo and Babaresco are grown on different soil. In general, Barolo is grown on poor soil, which gives it more tannic structure and lower level. However the difference in soil and elevations should also exist between various barolo crus.
The question I have is why certain vintage can be uniformly bad for one variety but good for the other.
David
The regions are indeed close together, though the hilly nature means weather can be more localised. That said, IMO if comparisons are made, they’re probably best made as village / cru level (if you have the energy for it!). Typically a good vintage in Barolo is good in Barbaresco and vice-versa. However local weather events (e.g. hail) can devastate a very confined area. Then there are vineyard variations, such as a vineyard that has great exposure / great drainage that can struggle in hot weather, where a normally less ideal vineyard thrives in such conditions.
Thus general advice is treat them the same unless you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of cru variations.
For the Northern regions of Ghemme/Gattinara/Fara etc. I tend to be more relaxed now about warmer vintages, as I’ve had some great 2003s - a vintage I’ve had very few successes with further south. Much more potential for divergence in type weather between here and B&B though.
Thanks, Ian
The reason I asked this question is that both 2006 and 2010 are considered to be one of the top barolo vintage but not even a decent one for bararesco. I am just curious how can the same grape variety in two wine regions only 10 miles from each other behave so different in the same year.
Should different crus at least have similar difference in the same vintage?
David
That’s not really accurate. Perceptions of 2006 and 2010 Barbaresco have been colored by Giacosa’s decisions not to bottle at all and Produttori’s decisions not to bottle the riservas. Those decisions were not driven by the quality of the vintages.
Hi David
They can diverge, most obviously when hail wipes out a small area of vines, and also where one soil is better suited to extremes of heat/rain. That said, despite a strong interest in the region, I will happily leave such analysis to wine winemakers / wine writers (albeit often taking their comments with a grain of salt).
2002 & 2003 ought to have produced some of the greater divergences between cru, as they were extreme vintages in different ways. Soil and exposure should have made a significant difference - though as mentioned above, not something I’ve specifically looked into - life is rather too short! Others may have specific examples they recall.
Regards
Ian
Someone posted not too long ago on this topic and most people agreed that they would be hard pressed to be able to identify one over the other in a blind tasting. I think Bill K. is correct but the exceptions may be far more numerous than the rule it seems.
David, Kevin is 100% correct in this. Look up the scores on a large handful of wines from each vintage and you will see that any notion that either was a bad or even weak Barbaresco vintage is unfounded. As Ian points out, weather, especially hail, can devastate one vineyard and leave another a half a kilometer away untouched, but you are never going to have a brilliant year in one zone and a poor one in the other. I think that it is likely that even differentiating the two zones, a recent wine reviewer fad, may well prove meaningless in the fullness of time. Cru (terroir) counts for a lot in both zones, as it does in Burgundy…
I was under the impression that the 2010 Produttori Reservas weren’t made because of the rainfall that diluted the grapes to a point where they needed the reserva stock to make a passable normal bottling.
Bill,
I agree with you, how lovely!
One concrete difference is the minimum aging requirement: Barbaresco is required to be aged in wood for half as long as Barolo. The better producers will exceed this minimum, generally. I don’t think the lower minimums are sufficient for great wine.
There are multiple explanations floating around that relate to vineyard-specific weather, boosting the base wine (which I think is typically heaviest on Ovello), not wanting to release riservas unless all nine are worthwhile, and controlling the flow of the wines into the market. I don’t know the answer with certainty, but you can Google interviews with Aldo Vacca and reach your own conclusions. My point was that the decision was not driven by an overall poor vintage throughout the communes. Neither 2006 nor 2010 was a bad vintage for Barbaresco generally.
Bill, further to your point I would say Gaja’s 1997 wines should be good evidence that generalizations about vintages aren’t super helpful.
Absolutely true. The best set of wines of his career. And Giacosa is high as a kite on his warm-weather 2000s,which frames the epic struggle for the hearts and minds of Nebbiolo lovers everywhere between Antonio Galloni and Il Maestro himself!
When Aldo Vacca was presenting the 2009’s here, this was raised with him. He explained that Produttori pay the growers depending on the quality of the grapes when delivered to the winery, container by container, and in 2010, across all terroirs the quality was not there. This is not to say that certain terroirs were not up to standard, some are year in year out, but with the policy to only release reservas on the basis of all or none, it was decided 2010 was not good enough. He added that Barbaresco is typically two weeks ahead (flowering through to picking) of Barolo and he felt this worked in Barolo’s favour in 2010.
I agree that generalization of any vintage is not a good idea. The only difference in terms of the weather impact I can think of is that Bararesco region has more Maritime Climate impact than the Barolo region. So may be rain fall / hail can make the difference for two regions in the same vintage.
Just my 2 cents
David
Erm, where’s Ken V. when you need him? I will freely confess that I’ve often wondered about this myself. Many thanks, David, for asking the question, and my thanks to you, Bill and Ian and Kevin, and others, for chiming in with responses. Much appreciated.
Salud,
Mike
I discussed this with Aldo. He gave a fairly complex explanation about how the soil in a number of their Barbaresco vineyards holds the water more than is typical in Barolo. So for them, in Barbaresco (and remember all their vineyards are in the commune of Barbaresco), the wines were a little more diluted than in Barolo. He said they were still very good, but given that riservas had already been made in 04, 05, 07, 08, and 09, and that 11 is looking great, there was no need to make 2010 riservas.
BTW on 2011, he said their Langhe Nebbiolo is their best ever.
A producer who makes both Barolo and Barbaresco* tells me that 2014 is looking much better than expected for Barbaresco, less good for Barolo, partly due to hail in Barolo and partly the weather generally.