TN: 1990 Barolo: Traditional vs. Modern

WINE TALK
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Our Barolo group got together to taste 1990 Barolo, focusing on a comparison of so-called modern producers vs. so-called traditional producers. All wines were tasted single blind. That is, we had discussed what each of us was bringing ahead of time, but we did not know which wines were which.

Here are detailed notes and photos.

Here is my summary:

It’s hard to draw conclusions from one tasting, especially considering that bottles of several key producers were off in one way or another. There were clearly great bottles of both types: traditional and modern.

Unfortunately, there were also bad bottles of both types:

  • Traditional wines that didn’t show well (imo) included: Brovia Barolo Monprivato, Bartolo Mascarello Barolo, Giacomo Conterno Barolo Cascina Francia.
  • Modern wines that didn’t show well (imo) included: Scavino Barolo Bric del Fiasc, Altare Langhe Nebbiolo Vigna Arborina, Corino Barolo Vigneto Rocche, Manzone Barolo Le Gramolere, Sandrone Barolo Cannubi Boschis.

Given that one stated purpose of the modern movement was to reduce funky flavors, it’s not clear that it does this. Of course there is no way to know for sure when, where or how these bottles were damaged. I have had great bottles of the Corino and Scavino before, in fact this Corino was from the same case as those bottles.

Back to the best wines, here is a list of my top 1990s from this tasting:

  1. 1990 Cappellano Barolo Otin Fiorin Collina Gabutti
  2. 1990 Bruno Giacosa Barolo Riserva Falletto di Serralunga d’Alba (magnum)
  3. 1990 Gaja Barolo Sperss
  4. 1990 Bruno Giacosa Barbaresco Riserva
  5. 1990 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Riserva Brunate
  6. 1990 Roberto Voerzio Barolo Brunate (magnum)
  7. 1990 Giuseppe E Figlio Mascarello Barolo Monprivato
  8. 1990 Elio Altare Barolo Vigneto Arborina
  9. 1990 Podere Rocche dei Manzoni Barolo Riserva Vigna d’la Roul
  10. 1990 Luciano Sandrone Barolo Cannubi Boschis
  11. 1990 Bruno Giacosa Barolo Villero di Castiglione Falletto
  12. 1990 Poderi Aldo Conterno Barolo Cicala
  13. 1990 Cavallotto Barolo Riserva Vignolo

You can see modern wines among the top wines (e.g. Gaja Sperss, Voerzio Brunate, and Altare Arborina). So, this tasting proves (to me) that great wines can be made by thoroughly modern methods, even in a fairly ripe vintage like 1990.

What is less clear to me is whether the source of the greatness is in the vineyard or in the winemaking. What this tasting cannot answer is whether these wines would be as great (or even better?) had they not (for example) seen so much new oak?

Moreover, as great as these wines are, do they lack the authenticity of true Barolo? To me, ultimately there is a truth in the Cappellano and the Giacosa that is lacking in the Gaja.

The Gaja is a great wine. The Cappellano is a great Barolo.

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Well said!

Yes,but can you handle the truth?

It was a fine gathering.Too bad you got the south end of the Villero… [cheers.gif]

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Handling “the truth” can be painful… [thumbs-up.gif]

I’ve sort of stopped thinking about this modern vs. tradtional since a 2004 visit to the region and many of its wineries. I realized then that the criteria were not too clear at all…and that no one was really trying to make rustic wines, no matter their methods.

It would have been more interesting (to me) if no one knew what was there at all…i.e, totally blind, reading your notes.

Curious about the 1990 Voerzios…as I have a small cache that I bought in 1993-4 from a friend in the biz who said the guy was good…I’d never heard of him. I guess I’ve planned to sell the rest (I sold some 5-6 years ago), but…since I haven’t, I was thinking of bringing one out before the end of the year. Seems that you liked the Brunate; I have mostly Cerequio.

Nice tasting, at any rate.

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Ken,
thanks for posting the notes. Gaja might have held down the far end of the modernist spectrum. I found that other so-called modernists also made wine that I would characterize as great barolo, the 90 Altare Barolo Arborina among them. Considering that 90 was not only a ripe vintage, but one in which modernists were more enthusiastic about the virtues of oak then they have been in more recent years, the quality of the best of these bottles reinforced how little the labels matter.

On the other hand, the problems we’ve had with Scavino’s wines from the 80s and 90s have made me wonder whether he belongs in a somewhat different category, together with Sandrone. I’ve had 85, 89, and 90 Scavinos that made believers of me. But recently, they have not impressed.

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Hi Steve,

I thought the Brunate surpassed the Gaja in the mod camp,but was one of the surprises of the night for me…and for Joe as well…:wink:

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The difference isn’t black and white, but the noticeable new oak is a clear distinction. I have slowly come to the conclusion that it is an artificial flavor that seems synthetic when used on Nebbiolo. At this point, why do it?


That would have been nice. And it would have been esp. nice if all the bottles had come directly from the winery like the Cappellano. But then who would have brought the wines? And how would we know that we were getting some of each and not the same wines multiple times?


There is no way to tell what you will think without trying one. Voerzio’s wines are clearly well-made and his vines well-cared for. The question is the style. I found that his 1989 Brunate had virtually no trace of oak, but the 1990 still does.

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That would have been nice. And it would have been esp. nice if all the bottles had come directly from the winery like the Cappellano. But then who would have brought the wines? And how would we know that we were getting some of each and not the same wines multiple times?

True,and I would never been able to pick out your Corino…the other surprise of the night for me.

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I am in the traditionalist camp. To me, that primarily means no new French oak, i.e. no barriques. I went through a phase where I bought and drank a few bottles of each of the “Barolo boys”, and I did find a few modern style wines that I thought were delicious, but now I do not buy them, the experiment was enough. However, to each his own - many have been raised to believe “no oak, no good”.

FWIW, I came into a few bottles of the 82 and 83 Giacomo Voerzio Barolo “La Serra”. I believe these were made before the two brothers, Gianni and Roberto, split up the winery. Each time I had one, I asked myself “What were those brothers thinking? How could they think adding new oak to these wines could make them better? They are magnificent as is”.

dc.

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You really liked the Corino?

Man, your table was in a better zone! [swearing.gif] [snort.gif]

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[wow.gif]

As you may have noted,I mentioned that I was surprised by the Corino,in that it wasn’t an overtly,in my face oak bomb,rather a more balanced well made wine more in line with the Brunate.If it weren’t a bit flawed,I could possibly have actually enjoyed a glass… [cheers.gif]…but man,that Falletto was a stunner,eh?

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“The difference isn’t black and white, but the noticeable new oak is a clear distinction. I have slowly come to the conclusion that it is an artificial flavor that seems synthetic when used on Nebbiolo. At this point, why do it?”

Nice point and nice notes Ken. I have to agree with you one hundred percent, and I feel the same way about the wines in Rioja raised in French barriques as well- while the results are sometimes very successful wines, they come across to my palate as alien flavors and aromatics for their respective regions. One thing to keep in mind is that the 1990 vintage was really still very early in the evolution (de-evolution?) of the modernist camp, and I have consistently found the same wines from the vintages of the latter half of the decade of the 1990s decidedly more extreme stylistically than I found the 1990s. I bought and drank a fair bit of the modernits from 1985, 1988, 1989 and 1990, and really did not mind them all that much. They drank earlier and were not in the same league as their corresponding “traditionalists” for my palate, but there were plenty of well-made wines in their style. By the vintages of '95, '96, '97 and forward, many of these same wines struck me as decidedly more over the top in terms of sloppy use of cooperage and I had absolutely zero desire to buy the latter vintages from the same producers whom I found some enjoyment in their wines in the earlier era. So I think it is important that the pretty good showings of several modernists in 1990 does not necessarily translate to the same projected rate of success when your group meets six or eight years down the road and repeats the experiment with the '96s.

I should note that I was really surprised by several of the 2004 Scavinos I tasted a short time ago, as the style here has really backed off the excessive wood and excessive toast of earlier vintages and they may well be on their way to transitioning back towards the middle of the road.

All the Best,

John

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John,

Your observation about the 04 Scavinos is good news. I guess the wave must have crested in the mid-90s and has been receding ever since–for the better. I own fewer of the wines of modernistas from the mid-90s than I do from the 80s and 1990, and perhaps that’s a good thing.

However, in a recent 85 horizontal with this group, and then the evening that Ken posts about, the Scavino showed quite poorly. I was very disappointed with the 85 BDF, and though I have a few more, have tended to pass them by when looking for a bottle to pull from the cellar.

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Hi Steven,

I have not had any of the Scavinos from '85, but am not too surprised that they have not shown so well. I had a couple of bottles of '78s from them over the last seven or eight years and they were drinkable, but already getting pretty long in the tooth and decidedly second division stuff (most of my '78s in the cellar are not even close to ready to my palate). In the '85 vintage amongst the modernists I bought some Altare, Clerico and Sandrone and thought they were pretty good; in '88 the list was expanded with Corino, in '89 I added a few Scavinos as well and then reigned in the modernists a bit with the '90 vintage. At the same time, I stopped buying Gaja with the '88 Sperss, which I really liked a lot, but found the oak arleady getting out of hand to my palate with the '89s and '90s. I really wish I had bought deeper in the '82 Gajas, as at this point, I find this definitely the high water mark of Angelo’s career and the last vintage that really blew me away. Later on he just moved the style of in a direction that I personally found boring and not meriting adding to the cellar. So it was good news to hear that the '90 Sperss was good at your tasting.

All the Best,

John

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Sorry to be late in this thread, I was on the thread in the other board… To me, the most interesting part of the dinner was the dramatic showing of the 90 cappella no and 90 Giacosa barbaresco riserva, which were rremarkably fresh… There was a lot of bottle variation across the board, and lots of different views. 90 altare brilliant, 90 scavino overripe and tired… As our host said, provenance is king!!,

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It’s an interesting question - I’ve got the '90 Scavino Cannubi, BdF and Rocche in the cellar, and at least from my stash, the wines still comes across as quite young/fresh - even the '89 Normale, while mature, still drinks as a wine with time ahead of it, and the '89 BdF may be the youngest driinking wine of all the wines I’ve mentioned. But, as Bill says, provenance can be key, and all these wines were bought on release.

I have had some bottle variation in the '90 Conterno Cascina Francia, but I also think this is a wine that really demands some air - I have had bottles that upon opening were decidedly pruny & overripe, yet with 30-60 minutes of aeration, blossomed beeyootifully. My '85 CF’s can also be a little variable.

Great theme for a tasting, though, and I’m sorry I missed all youse guys [welldone.gif] .

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Interesting tasting, Ken. It confirms my vague sense that, with time, nebbiolo often prevails over oak, roto-fermenters and so on.

At Scavino, when did Enrico take over? Wasn’t his father making the wines into the 80s? And when did De Grazia come into the picture? I have virtually no experience with the wines before 90, but I had a vague recollection that Enrico only took over sometime in the 80s.

I liked the Bric del Fiasc a lot in 90 and 96 (I was never so keen on the Cannubi and I found the first bottlings of Carobric to be like vile cherry cola), but I thought that across the board Scavino’s 97s and 98s were muddy and toyed-with when I tasted there in 2000. It’s possible that there was no change in methods in those three years and that the virtues of 96 simply masked the techniques; I don’t know.

On a visit there in 2002, Enrica told me her father had installed more botti in 1999 and reduced both the portion of the wine that went into new barriques (to 50%) and the length of time it spent in barrique (to a year instead of 18 months). So I think that marks the beginning of the pull-back there.

That seems to correspond to the change at other De Grazia producers. I remember thinking Chiara Boschi’s (E. Pira) 2001s were not too heavily oaked, for instance.

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It seems like a number of estates that went overboard on oak in the 90’s have backed way off in the 2000’s. Scavino is the poster-child for a major shift, but from what I can see Aldo conterno and Sandrone have also backed off as well. A recent visitor to Sandrone told me there were no Barriques to be seen, all was in botti.

Can anyone give a current status list of which modernist estates have backed way off and which ones haven’t?

19

Thanks for the data points.

To me the real story is the number of bad bottles. Did folks buy on release or wasn’t it clear? Even if they bought on release the distribution of some of these wines may have left something to be desired.

I have some of the wines that showed badly, eg. Brovia Monprivato. Now I’ll need to try one.

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[scratch.gif]

I can tell you,that of all the components of that dinner,including the camaraderie of those assembled,the venue,the grub and the wines,that “real story” wasn’t anywhere near to what was important to us.
Shit happens.So what?