Massolino winery visit + some Ligurian whites

WINE TALK
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I was staying in Serralunga d’Alba last weekend and on the recommendation of @B_Caputo (plus a number of others on a Barolo travel thread) visited Massolino. I was the only one there on a scorcher of a day and they were incredibly hospitable. I’m rather the Barolo neophyte and was essentially treated to a private, two hour WSET class on the region. I loved a lot of their wines as well - some tasting notes below.

The winery itself is right in Serralunga d’Alba - actually underneath the town square. A nice tasting room with a pretty view of the surrounding vineyards. They produce 450k bottles per year, with the majority going to export. Major markets are the US and (surprisingly to me) Australia.

The Massolino brothers (4th generation) who run the winemaking have spent time abroad and are experimenting with whites - there are a couple of clay amphorae in the cellar that were first tried with Riesling and now are part of the Chardonnay blend, and they’re using barriques for the Chardonnay. I thought it was interesting that the innovation was all focused on whites, with the only changes in the approach to reds over a long period apparently being just changing from fermentation in concrete to large oak vats (plus the addition of the Barbaresco and an oaked Barbera d’Alba to the range). I asked why Barolo winemakers weren’t experimenting with IGT wines like their brethren in Tuscany are. The reply was essentially “Nebbiolo is unique here and it makes sense for us to just stick to that. Only Gaja is famous enough to get away with crazy new stuff”.

We went from there to Cinque Terre so I’ve thrown in a couple of notes on Ligurian whites. Overall, the local whites didn’t do much for me, but Pigato from North of Genoa was a better match for the 98 degree weather.

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Massolino - bottles purchased / notes after drinking

2020 Barolo Parussi: Remarkable at the tasting how much more approachable this was than the other two Barolos, with bright red fruit and relatively lower tannins. Bracing acidity, but not unpleasant because of the juiciness of the cherry and raspberry flavors. Quite a bit of spice, with some orange rind and white flowers, a little herbal on the finish. My favorite bottle of the range for drinking now.

2022 Barbaresco: Bright, fresh and interesting. Strawberries and red cherries on the nose with notable sweet spices. Same to taste with some floral and nectarine notes. Mid weight, lively acidity, welcoming tannins. Drinking beautifully now. A bottle of this disappeared quickly over a dinner of pesto trofie. Apparently a newer line for Massolino after leasing some acreage in Barbaresco.

2020 Barbaresco Albesani: Ripe raspberries, some piquant tangerine and baking spices that go on for ages. Heady nose. Larger body and soft, mouth coating tannins. Lovely.

Other Massolino wines - brief notes post winery tasting

2019 Barolo Vigna Rionda Riserva: Fuller bodied and darker cherry fruit than the other wines in the range. Somewhat earthy and floral. Pretty powerful wine with high acid and tannin. Very closed at the moment and I don’t know Barolo well enough to have a view on how good this will become over time.

2020 Barolo: Well balanced, more medium weight wine, but both more savory and closed than the Barbaresco. Even though 2020 is an “accessible” vintage, this needs a good few years in the cellar, or at least a lot more air than the bottle had at the tasting.

2022 Langhe Chardonnay: I’d never had a Chardonnay from the region before. Lots of tropical fruit on the nose and I was expecting it to be too flabby for my liking so was pleasantly surprised to taste some decent acidity, reasonable balance and a more nuanced flavor.

2023 Dolcetto d’Alba: Prominent strawberry and bubblegum aroma and flavor immediately made me think of Beaujolais but apparently this isn’t made via carbonic maceration.

I also tasted two Barbera d’Albas - one unoaked, one oaked. Neither was bad, but neither made enough impression for decent notes.

Liguria

2023 Forlini Cappelini Cinque Terre DOC (Manarola): I was staying in Manarola so wanted to try a bottle from the village. This was medium bodied with only medium acid, peach flavors and a simple finish. Might have been OK with a pesto pasta in the fall but on a hot day with fish it didn’t do so well.

2023 (?) Durin Braie Riviera Ligure Di Ponente Pigato: Enjoyed with a fresh sea bream lunch at an awesome little spot on the waterfront at Camogli (Italian for “hard to find parking”). Had a racy minerality, lemon flavor and real salinity that perfectly matched the food. Slightly more than medium body but not at all too much. Good stuff. Thanks to @Ian_Sutton for suggesting the stop in Camogli.

2023 Giacomelli Bobolo Colli di Luni Vermentino: From the Southern part of Liguria past Spetzia. Mid bodied white with reasonable acidity and yellow apple flavor. Not bad with grilled fish but nothing to write home about.

2023 Bio Vio Riviera di Ponente Pigato: Enjoyed with a swordfish and truffle pasta. Similar to the other Pigato but not as fresh or saline.

? Cooperative Agricola Cinque Terre Sciacchetra: Tasted as a dessert with biscotti. This passito wine is a blend of several grapes and a regional specialty. Lighter body than other passitos I’ve had. Distinct apricot smell and flavor. Not a terribly impressive length. Nice after dinner drink but felt a bit lacking.

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Great notes! Thank you for sharing … Just a couple of quick thoughts that your post “jogged my memory” regarding my recent visit to Barolo/Barbaresco, Liguria and Tuscany.

I had some fantastic Barbera – the good ones have what I would call an “electric blackberry” note that I have not found in other wines. I do not really understand the oaked Barbera Superiore offering and I told one winemaker that – the oak just completely overwhelms the qualities of that grape and makes it taste like bland oaked red wine. He told me that he and his winemaking friends have found a huge softening in the market for oaked Barbera over the last 3 years – it is the only wine they are not selling out. A bit surprising that Massolina added it, but maybe it still sells well for certain producers.

I tried a lot of Ligurian whites and a lot of Italian whites made from a lot of grapes that I had never heard of – in general, they were just meh. The unknown, super-local reds are fantastic, but Italian whites have not been my jam. I would say that out of all the whites I tried, the Vernaccia found near Sam Gimignano and Verdicchio are probably the best to my tastes. Great on a warm day.

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Massolino has a rarity in its 2021 Massolino Barbera d’Alba Gisep. This one is worth seeking out and it’s certainly not your father’s Barbera, even if it’s theirs…

Our own visit to Massolino was fantastic (September 2023). I believe the Massolino Barolo Margheria is one of my favorites. So pleasing all around.
Great notes. Thanks for sharing.

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This is exactly where I’ve been on Italian whites. But I’m in Italy and it’s hot, so it’s as good a time as ever to try to prove myself wrong and find some I might actually buy at home.

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Nice write up and Massolino is a very good visit with good Barolo wines!

As for the whites, if you want to increase your chance of finding Italian white wines I’d recommend that you focus on the Friuli region, plenty of really good producers.

What white wines do you usually like?

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Thx, good suggestion. Fruili is pretty virgin territory for me.

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Aaron,
Check out this thread from my holiday charity sponsorship. Lots of excellent northern Italian whites posted

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FYI - North Berkeley Imports brings this in to the US. Never had it, just their Rossese.

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Hope it will be happier hunting ground for you. If there are certain style or type of white wines you enjoy more than I, probably we (:grin:) are happy to point you towards a few different producers that might be worth checking out.

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One of the key explanations to your question might be that there is no IGT appellation in Piedmont. It’s either DOC/DOCG wines or just vino da tavola.

And sure, there actually are many producers making all kinds of Langhe Rossos or non-appellation vino rossos, eg. making 50/50 blends with Cabernet Sauvignon and Nebbiolo. However, the thing is that most people who buy Piedmontese wines, want wines that taste like Piedmontese wines. Especially Nebbiolo can get easily overwhelmed by other varieties, so usually those aren’t particularly sought-after wines. If people want Nebbiolo, they want Nebbiolo in purezza, not Nebbiolos diluted with other lesser varieties (like Pinot Noir or Cabernet Sauvignon :crazy_face: ).

And when it comes to the Langhe region, the rules of DOC Langhe are already quite flexible, so the producers don’t really have the need for an IGT appellation - for example they can make red wines in any way they want to from any authorized red varieties and call it Langhe Rosso. However, since those kinds of “Super-Piedmontese” blends (in reference to Super-Tuscans) are not particularly interesting to most consumers of Piedmontese wines, it just doesn’t make sense financially to make those kinds of wines. You can get better money by making just varietal wines instead.

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So, did they stop doing Riesling? If “yes,” that’s a bummer, because theirs was pretty good.

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I’m sorry I missed that last year Tony, great thread!

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I didn’t taste any but got the impression that they’re still producing Riesling, just not using those clay amphorae for it because the oxidative flavour it imparted didn’t work.

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That’s really interesting, thanks Otto. I have to say, I’m still surprised that there hasn’t been some sort of a “Super Piedmont” movement under the Langhe Rosso DOC label.

My (admittedly superficial!) understanding of the Tuscan history was that the initial driver was not money but the curiosity of the winemakers to try new things, with them having to battle for years to get the IGT designation and make it a commercial success. And of course many of them have little or no Sangiovese.

Maybe the climate in Piedmont makes growing high quality international varieties harder than in Tuscany, but I would have thought that for winemakers in the region who wanted to explore different styles there would be a ready path to doing that profitably now that the Tuscan precedent has become so successful.

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Not Otto, but I’m not sure it’s that surprising if you consider the size of the regions. Smaller regions have better possibilities to meet the needs of its winemakers. The region didn’t have the same need to revolt in that way, it had its own other experiments to drive quality forward. What they have in common is the drive to improve which happened in Italy in different regions in different ways.

Tuscany and Langhe/Piemonte have quite different backgrounds, and legacy which I think plays an important role as well.

Gaja is probably the only one that for a long time steps out of the regular designation.

You can still find some experiments with French varieties if that’s what you’re looking for though.

When you have one of the world’s best mono varietal wines, plenty of other very interesting varieties - why would you need to think about international varieties?

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Why would you call Piedmont a smaller region, Mikael? I thought it was an interesting point so googled it and it looks like Piedmont and Tuscany have a similar volume of production. Maybe that was different historically?

It’s a matter of taste, obviously, but for my money the Tuscans also have one of the great single varietal wines in Brunello.

The world probably has more than enough cabernet already, I just found it intriguing after seeing what they were doing the non-indigenous whites.

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I think we are on to something here. Personally, I never quite understood why winemakers in Burgundy were so obsessed with their odd indigenous grape varieties down there. I really think they need more experimentation and innovation.

Imagine the possibility of a Super Burgundy movement: Cabernet Sauvignon in La Tache, Merlot in Chambertin, the finest Petit Verdot grown in Musigny. How about some Sauvignon Blanc in Montrachet? The possibilities are endless.

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Aaron, I was not very clear in what I was referring to in terms of region, jumping a bit between Langhe (the Langhe Rosso thought you had) and Piemonte more generally.

Single varietal Sangiovese, at least from what I can recall (perhaps someone will correct me) was not traditionally that common, and not allowed in prestigious designations. Compare that with how long as region Nebbiolo has be produced as a single variety wine and its reputation for it.

Sometime 60-70s Italy had a quality drive across the country to make better wines. Think it makes sense to think about it in that context. France was the benchmark and I guess most advanced, made sense to look that direction to push the envelope and in different things were picked up and experimented with. In Tuscany the perhaps looked more to Bordeaux while Langhe looked more towards Burgundy for inspiration.

I think it’s a good question to contemplate. If you want more food for thoughts, listen to Levi Dalton’s interviews - you’ll hear the winemakers from that era and their children talk about inspirations of the above. As for the whites, it has been less focus on then the reds, guess there’s more freedom and less tradition “restricting” winemakers.

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The initial driver was quality. In Chianti and Chianti Classico it was mandatory to add white grapes (neutral and often low-acid Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia) to the reds. Many producers fought against that because they thought it made an inferior product.

Some producers (Montevertine, for example), thought that the key for making best Chianti Classico was to eliminate the white varieties, so they started making wines with only red varieties, including a 100% varietal Sangiovese, Le Pergole Torte - one of the first wines made in this style, if not the first one. They were denied the CC appellation, so instead of returning to blending white varieties with the reds, they stuck with vino da tavola.

Antinori, on the other hand, took inspiration from the first Super-Tuscan, Sassicaia, made with Bordeaux varieties. The first Tignanello was a Chianti Classico made with the white grape varieties, but also with some Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc in the blend, to balance out the white varieties. However, after the debut vintage, they dropped the white varieties altogether.

So in essence, they didn’t do these because they wanted to try new things. They did these because they simply thought the appellation laws didn’t allow for them to make the best possible wine, so they chose to leave the appellation and stuck with making their vision of the best wine.

Piedmont, on the other hand, allows for quite some experimentation to begin with, especially with the Langhe Rosso category. Gaja has famously experimented by blending Barbera to their Barolo and Barbaresco wines, declassifying them to Langhe Rosso. I guess that’s a statement of sorts, but I personally don’t see any non-Nebbiolo additions to Barolo or Barbaresco really benefiting the wines; nor did Gaja’s trick prompt any other producers joining this blending movement. Barolo and Barbaresco remain varietal Nebbiolo wines for the very good reason that this is the best possible iteration or Barolo and Barbaresco for most people.

However, there was the movement of Barolo boys in the late 1980’s and 1990’s; they thought Barolo was definitely not as good as it could, so they introduced very modern vinification methods and aging in new barriques. Can’t say their wines represent an improvement to the traditional style of Barolo - on the contrary, I dislike them quite a bit - but they did prompt many traditional producers to improve their processes, including many viticultural choices. Now traditionalist producers didn’t employ traditional viticultural or oenological choices just because that’s the way nonno always made wine - now the choices were made because they could make the best possible wine with them. So while the Barolo boys didn’t really make particularly great wines themselves, I have to admit they managed to indirectly improve the wines of the Langhe region as a whole.

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I really hadn’t appreciated that blending had been mandatory in Chianti.

Thanks for the interesting run down guys!

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