Surprisingly more accessible/less tannic at the outset (especially so given how shut down the nose was). Still young, but very cohesive right now, although you can still feel this wine on your enamel as you savor the finish.
I like this better tonight upon opening, but this is also a youngster with a lot of potential for further nuance/improvement.
Sweet & sour cherry on the palate, nice acidity, tannic but not aggressively so. Really coats the palate, and has a lengthy finish. If you like your Nebbiolo on the young side, it wouldn’t be a crime to try one now, but at least IMO this wine will clearly be better in another five or so years.
Popped & poured; FWIW, with the exception of Pora, this is usually my least favorite cru, and I like this wine quite a bit right now.
I was with Aldo Vacca a few times in April, and part of our discussion was vintage(s). One of the things that came up, naturally, was 01, and his feeling (well, at least part of his feeling re: 01) is that its ready to drink, now (he was rather emphatic with the last part). Though they do drink their wines much differently (read: younger), as you know. The discussion then led to 2000, but that’s another story.
Aldo definitely thinks the wines are better on the younger side and that folks in America tend to hold the wines too long. FWIW I don’t completely agree with him and I do have plenty of 10 to 15 year old PdB however I do think the wines are more drinkable than some folks think. I have had 2001s that I thought were excellent and recently a couple of 2004s showed nicely.
I’ve never understood that point of view, Tim - Antonio Galloni also used to talk about liking his Produttori’s between 5-10 years of age. I mean, these guys are obviously knowledgeable, experienced tasters (and/or winemakers), but to me drinking the wines this early misses so much of the eventual development and pleasure these wines will ultimately be capable of rendering.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed both wines tonight, but it was equally obvious to me that both wines are just starting on their path to maturity - off tonight’s bottle, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if that Paje is kicking butt & taking names in 2035. And if you only have 2-3 bottles of each, I would be unequivocal in my recommendation to wait.
I’ve only had 2004 Reservas, but for every one of those I’ve felt it was infanticide to open it now. I opened a 2005 Rabaja by mistake (I misread the year!) which is a magnificent wine, but at this stage you only get the smallest glimpse of what it will become.
So Produttoris 5-10 years from vintage, not for me …
I don’t really like my Burgundies until they are about 15 years of age or older, and Bordeaux actually older than that, and I’ve had many glorious Barolo’s back to 71. But my take on the produttoris has changed. I think the take that in the first ten years they are a shadow of what they will become is wrong, and I actually think, as Aldo says, that they lose some of their spark and freshness after that 10-12 year mark, of course depending upon vintage and vineyard.
I’ve only been buying since 96, but have had a number of older ones, but only back to 88 if I remember correctly. IN most cases, I’ve found the older wines to have aged and evolved, but have not really blossomed and come alive, as many Barolos of comparable age have done. Perhaps they are still in the intermediate stage, and when they hit 25 or 30 years of age, we will see this occur. Or perhaps none of my bottles has been pristine, although there have been a fair number.
For a short while I wondered if I was doing it wrong, or if I just didn’t have the right bottles from the right years, but when you hear Aldo Vaca’s take, and Galoni, and Ian d’Agata (although I think he’ll straddle the fence), I feel a little more validated. I do think that there may have been some change in the wines between the 70’s-80’s, and the 90’s-2000’s, and I’d be interested in anyone’s input on that.
I don’t really think there’s necessarily a right or wrong here, but I’ve honestly yet to have a Produttori that’s better at 20-25 years of age than 8-12.
(BTW, pop and poured a 2006 (9.105) while contemplating this thread, and not nearly as closed and young as I thought it might be. Pretty enjoyable with structure and tannin to last for quite a while.)
I don’t really think there’s necessarily a right or wrong here, but I’ve honestly yet to have a Produttori that’s better at 20-25 years of age than 8-12.<<<<<<
Well, I’d say this is clearly the wrong answer, but hey, that’s just my take .
I’ve yet to have an old produttori. Odd really as I have seen them around (mature) at reasonable prices, but never bought one. 1996 Montestefano is my oldest in the cellar, and 1996 is also the oldest normale I’ve tasted (last year). Referring back to the note below, I still felt it was a way off full maturity:
1996 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco- Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barbaresco (1/19/2013)
Very fragrant on opening, despite being rather cold.
Rather a dull red colour with a noticeable band of orange/brown at the rim. Reasonable depth to the colour though.
As it’s warming up, and with a little coaxing, it appears to be true to type. Nicely high-toned, with decent cherry-led fruit, but also with a hint of mushroom and some appealing fennel.
The palate is light bodied, except for soft, but persistent ‘lurking’ tannins, which along with refreshing acidity, give it a clear backbone. The fruit is less noticeable than on the nose and overall it feels a little closed.
OK with a little more time it really is opening out now, with some fruit sweetness coming through to help flesh it out and the acidity leaving a pleasing tangy finish.
Actually, a more serious reply to John, but I’ve included a link to Ken V’s Fine Wine Geek website below where he tasted a flight of '90 Produttori blind last summer (and I apologize in advance if Ken’s food photography makes you start salivating in front of your computer screen!):
While I certainly appreciate the fact that certain folks might like young nebbiolo-based wines when they are fruit-forward and somewhat monotonic, I’d also suggest that if that is what you like in wine, there are better places to spend your money (the southern Rhone immediately comes to mind).
Thanks, Bob. Yeah that was a great tasting. Wish I wasn’t 5000 miles away.
However with regard to the issue at hand, verticals would be more instructive, like the not very well received vertical of Rabaja I posted a while ago. I wonder how many of you are sampling and comparing these wines in midlife? (perhaps many of you are, but I know in Barolo I just tuck mine away until after 15+ years of age, as I don’t see much value in trying them too early. I actually don’t particularly like Barolo, burg, N Rhone too young.)
I know I’m in the minority here of those on this board, at least those who are speaking up, but I suppose things would be pretty boring if we all agreed. I actually have high hopes for 96, but so far, I still liked them better 6-8 years ago. But there’s certainly still plenty of time for that vintage.
John, I actually think it’s still too soon for '96, and feel the same way about '99, to be honest.
It’s funny, but in a different thread a few months ago, Jim Anderson posted that on a recent trip to Piemonte, not one producer even mentioned aging the wines. Now maybe they are sensitive about Nebbiolo having this reputation of taking forever to come around, but to me, Nebbiolo and Pinot Noir from Burgundy are two sides of the same coin - they are both grapes that develop some serious aromatic complexity, but to do that takes time.
As I said yesterday, the wines drank well (and the Montestefano was surprisingly open), but neither of them had developed any secondary characteristics in the bouquet. I guess the analogy I would use - if a buddy of yours was telling you that he was drinking all of his Chevillon Vaucrains from 2005, you might not tell him it was a waste, but it certainly wouldn’t prompt you to start opening your own stash (other than maybe a bottle for “science” just to verify he was full of crap ).
To me, it’s the same way with Nebbiolo - I get that someone might like the wine exactly where it’s at right now, but man, are they missing all the fireworks down the road.
I actually agree with everything you said. And I think I wouldn’t drink my 96 and 99 now because they are past the “freshness” stage, and now that that’s gone, you might as well let them sit until the complexity of age really has a chance to blossom. My problem is that I just really haven’t seen it blossom with produttori–they seem to age and get secondary characteristics but never seem to transform into a wow wine, as opposed to any number of barolos and a few barbarescos that I have that make this transformation (I’ve got about 15 cases or so). who knows, maybe I’ve just not had the right wines from the right years and the right sites, or maybe by the time they reach Seattle they are played out…
so if someone has some Wow aged produttori that’s not 5000 miles away, let me know and we’ll see if I can be converted.
(Just one thread drift note. The 2006 Torre comes out of the gate open and promising as I mentioned, but then evolves into an ever so slightly raisiny density and heaviness that’s not appealing now. Lest everyone think I just drink everything early, I wouldn’t recommend doing that with this one.)
As the crow flies. I’m sure there’s a direct flight, right? (If it’s how the crows fly in my neighborhood, it would be 10,000 miles. I’m not sure where that expression came from).
Don’t know much about the nuances of all these wines but was at Tomasso’s in Brooklyn and my friend David Lazar ordered a 2001 Produttori del Barbaresco Rio Sordo Riserva. It was really good, easy drinking. The next bottle was a mag of 96 Charia Boschis Cannubi Barolo. That was a huge tannic monster. Seemed young, needed 45 mins in glass to open some. Towards the end of the bottle it was really doing well, but first pour…. ouch…
I’ve never had it. One of the things I’ve wondered is whether the more recent wines are a bit different than the wines from the 70’s and 80’s. One of the things that some have speculated about as well is whether the favored sites from the 70’s and 80’s are still the favored sites in the warmer past 10-15 years.
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