TN: Il Chiosso Fara '10...(short/boring)

WINE TALK
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Shared this new Nebb w/ John today:

  1. IlChiosso DOC: Fara (Fara&Briona; 90% Nebbiolo/5% Vespolina/5% UvaRara; 22 mo. in oak barrels; 14%; ViasImports; Lotto L14-224; www.ilchiossogattinara.it/en/) Gattinara 2010: Med.light somewhat garnet/bricked color; light floral/lilacs/Nebb rather tarry/pungent/road tar classic Nebb bit alcoholic somewhat complex nose; rather tart light floral/lilacs strong pungent/road tar/earthy/loamy bit complex flavor w/ ample bitey/astringent tannins; very long tart/astringent/bitey/lean/angular slight floral/lilacs strong tarry/pungent rather light/lean finish w/ ample bitey tannins; not a lot of aromatics & lots of pungent/tarry character and rather hard/astringent; needs more age but takes a real leap of faith. $27.00 (AV)

A wee BloodyPulpit:

  1. This was a new producer for me. Founded in 2007, they have an interesting lineup of wines from all the usual Colline Novarese suspects. Though this Nebb didn’t do a whole lot for me, I’d try some of their other wines.
  1. We all know the rules for drinking Nebbiolo. The wines need to be opened for hours ahead in order to allow them to breath and soften the tannins. We do know this, don’t we??
    I opened this mid-morning when I took this note, along-side w/ my bowl of Wheaties. Breakfast of Champions…which is why I eat it. I then tracked the wine over about a 10 hr period. Straight from the bottle. The wine lost aromatics, the tannins became much harder and aggressive, and the wine did not soften at all. Exactly the opposite of what we know to be true about Nebbiolo.
    I would like the experts of Nebb to tell me what I did wrong w/ this wine. Should I have decanted it the day before? Should I have done a splash decant? Should I have used my Venturi? What the heck was I doing wrong? Help me out here.
    Tom
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Maybe it’s just a lousy wine, Tom. You didn’t do anything wrong.

And most Nebbiolo experts don’t tell you to decant a young wine long in advance, they tell you to wait 20-30 years.

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I didn’t think it was a lousy wine at all. I just had high hopes for it & it just didn’t deliver.

You go to any basic wine book (Johnson/Robinson/Zraly/etc) and they will extoll the benefits of allowing a tannic/young red wine, Nebbiolo or not, to breathe
in a decanter to “soften” the tannins. That’s a stated fact by the “experts” we are told & told over again. My experience is quite the contrary. If you allow
a hard/tannic wine to stand in a decanter, the tannins become more & more pronounced, in most all cases. But why let facts stand in the way of whet we
“know” as told to us by the experts.
Besides…ask Cabe. He’ll tell you that young Nebbs need several hrs or more of breathing time to make them more approachable. But 20-30 yrs of age
is the only real solution.
Tom