Bruno Rocca Barbaresco
Produttori is hard to match. De Foreville and Cantina del Pino do a good job
NorCal Costcos just blew out the 2012 Cascina Adelaide Barolo (they sit below Castello Falletti) for $9.97. For the price definitely one of the best deals out there even if the vintage was not great.
And it wasn’t a bad vintage – just a lighter one.
Jeff or anyone else, when do you tend to drink the Albe and Castiglione? I’ve got these scattered around vintages in the 2000s but don’t have a feel for how long they should age.
Chris, I don’t mind tannin, so I have no problem drinking these on the young side. The Albe and Castiglione are easily twenty year wines though. I am drinking through some 96 Castiglione right now and they are drinking great. I haven’t had any Produttori normale, or classico, with any real age on them. John and others here with a more experience than me can probably provide better insight.
Jeff,
I just had a 78 Produttori Normale, with great provenance, that needed an hour in the glass to open up. And a recent 88 was in a good place also. They age very well. Their 03 is drinking well right now, and an 04 I had last year was still a bit young for my taste.
Having tasted Produttori’s Normales / Classicos a few dozen times from the past six decades always down to 1961, I really have to concur.
Thanks Jeff. What do you mean when you say “on the young side?” On WB and talking about Barolo, that could mean a very wide range of things!
With Produttori, I’ve recently enjoyed 2014 and 2012. I have no problem opening them this young but I usually grab at least 6. I probably should be buying cases. With the Albe and Castiglioni, I think they have more to gain with age. A recent 2013 Albe was very structured and not as accessible as the 14 Produttori. It depends on how many bottles you have. If you only have a couple bottles of each, I would drink the Produttori near term, the Albe a few years after release and sit on the Castiglioni until it was at least 15. I think these are wines that are better young (within a couple years of release) or old (maybe 15 to 20 and older) but not in between. I am avoiding all of these that I have that are 8 to 12 years old as they may have lost the charms of youth but not really gained any tertiary qualities yet.
I am curious to hear what John, Ken V, Tom M, Bob H, etc. think.
I don’t drink a lot of younger Nebbiolo, so I really can’t contribute. Like Tom, I would say that the 2004 Normale is still too young. That said, I liked a bottle of the 2008 I had recently, so it’s really vintage dependent.
Actually, I just went back and took a look at recent notes - in addition to the 2008, I also liked the 2005 and the 2004 - 2006 was the vintage that IMO is still too young.
Very helpful. I’ll probably look starting around 15-16 years from vintage.
Tried the '14 Produttori at a restaurant last week to “check in” on my bottles. The acidity seems out ahead of everything else and the fruit didn’t have much depth to it, though the tannins were already pretty tame. Maybe I just prefer more mid palate richness, but this wine seemed very tight and austere right now. Seems like it needs more time.
Though what Jeff is saying about either drinking soon or after 15-20 years is depressing! That is why I sometimes do not mind buying the slightly warmer vintages like '11, some of which are already drinking quite well, while others need a few more years.
I don’t see a gap in the Produttori normale drinking windows like you’re suggesting – drink young or with 15-20 years. The '99 was superb by 2006 or 2007, and the '04 and '05 are drinking very well now. Depending on your preferences, the '06 is spectacular or a brute. It’s definitely a powerhouse and will certainly be better in five or ten years, but two bottles I’ve had in the last six months count as two of the most seriously satisfying wines I’ve had in that time.
So I don’t really buy the premise.
2013 is currently thought to be one of the greatest Barbaresco vintages in a while (and having tasted a good handful of them, I tend to agree with the overall consensus), whereas 2014 is a disappointing, thin and underwhelming vintage when very little of anything notable was made.
It’s no wonder a 2013 Barolo Albe was more stern and tightly-knit than a 2014 Produttori Barbaresco. A comparison of two different producers from two different regions and two different vintages is like comparing apples and sausages. When comparing Baroli / Barbareschi, you should compare wines from the same vintage, and preferably from the same region - or then the same wines from one producer but from different vintages, to point out the difference in vintages.
You’re quite wrong about 2014 in Barbaresco. While there were several bad hail storms in Barolo in '14 and it was a very difficult year there, those storms did not hit Barbaresco, and it was a decent year there. In 2014, you can’t equate the two areas.
Quite true. I tasted just a little 2014 Barbaresco in bottle so far, though next month will remedy that, but what I’ve tasted has been quite good. Lighter wines, more elegant, and perhaps not destined for greatness or particularly long lives, though they are classic and consumers looking for more delicacy than power and nuance than extract should be pleasantly surprised.
While not specifically referring to Barolo normale bottlings, and specific to the 2013 vintage, this chart I put together last year is a handy reference to many values in Barolo. Prices may no longer be current, but the listings should still have relevancy.
There are some pretty interesting values beyond the normale bottlings. I particularly recommend the wines of Francesco Rinaldi, Elvio Cogno and Ettore Germano as superb values.
Here is the link to the article itself if anyone is interested.
John,
I completely agree with you. Given how close together they are it doesn’t make much sense that you could have vintages in the two areas that are very different in character, but you can, and 2014 was the proof. Personally I love fresher vintages, and the best Barbarescos from 2014 and Barolos from 2012 will be very useful wines in a few years.
That’s very true - you can’t equate two areas in the same year; the textbook example is how Barolo fared well in 2010 whereas Barbaresco really didn’t, and it went vice versa in 2011 (although I haven’t been that impressed by many 2011 Barbarescos yet - let’s see if things change when they get some age). I was talking about Piedmont 2014 in general and Barbaresco didn’t take the brunt of bad weather unlike many neighboring regions.
However, I’ve understood that 2014 wasn’t particularly decent in Barbaresco either. They didn’t experience that much rainfall as Barolo, but still a lot more than usual and the overall temperatures were somewhat lower than on average. I’ve yet to taste the 2014’s Barbies, but the vintage and tasting reports I have read have said that they should be lighter and more delicate than usual. Nothing bad in that, but that’s more the style I like in my Langhe Nebbiolos.