Also, I put this in a sheet as I was having difficulty digging through it: Traditional vs Modern Barolo / Barbaresco - Google Sheets
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Michael, I just looked for these notes that called out oak use. The only note I can find referring to 2019s (on the Fausoni) says that older Sottimano had too much oak, but on the 19s the influence is imperceptible. Am I looking at the wrong note?
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Max. Just checked and apparently it was the 2016 Barbaresco Pajore. I canât remember if I was considering purchasing the '16 or if I was looking at notes of past vintages in reference to an offer of '19. I believe it was the latter.
Ah got it. Iâll probably wait until next year - I doubt thereâs a rush to jump on the 2019s or 2020s frankly.
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Well, the outcome is that I wonât be buying regardless due to the oak! Iâm pretty sure they use something like 15% new french oak. Thatâs 15% too much for me.
Ha, I meant no hurry on any 2019s/2020s. Fair enough - I actually donât mind some new French oak and 15% doesnât seem overdone by any means.
I think there is some hype for 19/20 so I will buy early for the things I like. As for the oak, my statement was not for all grapes or regions, but I really donât like new French oak on Nebbiolo.
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I generally agree, but I do find some exceptions. I had 2006 Giovanni Corino Barolo Giachini back in December and it was very good. 35% new french oak is what the site shows currently, but I am not sure how much it was in 2006. I assume as much, or more.
@Max_S1 - I actually just picked up a bottle of 2019 Sottimano Barbaresco Basarin while in Piedmont. I will give it a few more weeks as it just landed last week, but I plan to get to it in July and I will let you know my thoughts.
I have this Basarin 2016 in the cellar⌠Interested to know your thoughts!
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Thanks Joseph, look forward to hearing about it!
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Also interested. My thought with new french oak and Nebbiolo is basically âwhy?â What does it add? I get what it does for other varieties, good and ill, but I find it detracts from the nerve and edge of Nebbiolo without doing anything positive. Obviously some winemakers disagree. Earlier drinking would be my guess as to the purpose it is intended to serve. It makes the tannin more supple in a younger Nebbiolo, but I donât consider that to be a good thing. I recently had some wines from Bruno Rocca, who receives a lot of praise from Galloni. I thought the wines were terrible. Or rather, they were fine, competent wines, but their potential was absolutely ruined by a heavy oak treatment. Maybe with long aging it all works out but I wonât be holding on to any to find out.
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For me it is pretty much the same. I love the bright red fruit of Nebbiolo, the vibrancy that comes with it and a translucent garnet color. Oak influence on my Sangiovese is something I am much more open to and in fact, plenty of my favorite Sangiovese are modern leaning.
As for making Barolo & Barbaresco more for early consumption I would think it makes more sense to shorten maceration times, rather than add French oak, but I am sure that is quite debatable and very subjective.
My thinking is that the value of oak is probably more site specific and vintage specific. Although many modern producers probably have great sites to make traditional Barolo, I think some sites just do not seem to be able to provide the beautiful red fruit that I, and I think many others, are looking for, at least in most vintages. In which case, well integrated oak offers a bit of roundness, sweetness and spice for middle aged Barolo.
I would be curious to get your thoughts on the 2016 Giorgio Pelissero Barbaresco Nubiola if you have had or have it at some point. Imo it is good qpr. Very modern, but the acidity of 2016 keeps it lively. I could imagine a much more to my liking traditional wine made from those grapes for sure, but I think it is easy to see why many would enjoy it. I was suggesting it in place of 2018 PdB Normale when I did not have any with pretty satisfactory results. I would never suggest it in place of 2016 or 2017 PdB Normale though.
What does new-ish small French oak add to Nebbiolo? 
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When people are talking about new French oak, they mean new barriques, right?
I think we can all agree that using used French oak botti is fine (unless we now want to excommunicate Giacosa and Brovia from the traditionalist camp).
Also, a good reason to use a new French oak botti is that its the only way to make it a used French oak botti.
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This.
A new botti will always add some oak influence to a wine, no matter which oak it is made from, but the impact is minuscule compared to a barrique (in a simplified fashion, this can be calculated by the inside surface area divided by the volume of the vessel), so even though a new French oak botti might add different aromatics compared to a new Slavonian oak botti, the difference would be quite minuscule due to the very small oak impact on the wine (due to the large vessel size). This is why it really wouldnât make sense to talk about the wood material when talking about botti - even if they were made of something else than Slavonian oak, it wouldnât matter after one or two uses.
So, yes, when people talk about new French oak while discussing Nebbiolo, they talk about new barriques. I havenât heard of anyone renewing French oak botti on a regular basis - and it wouldnât even make sense from a commercial point of view. If you want to use botti instead of barriques or tonneaux, you are wanting to minimize oak influence - this is why renewing botti on a regular basis sounds pretty much counter-intuitive.
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My general sense was a winemaker that used botti primarily would only use a new botte in order replace an old botte that was worn out, gotten moldy, or was otherwise rendered unusable for some reason. To your point, they wouldnât use a new botte to influence the flavor of the wine (though Iâm guessing it would to a small degree).
I had a conversation with a Barolo winemaker visiting SF and she said her winery had relationships with cooperages and that if some particularly high-quality oak was in stock, the cooperage would reach out to them about making a new cask for them. Iâm guessing that would be a factor too when deciding whether to get a new botte or not.
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I can imagine that a new botti might get run in before usage with water (?) or something, for a period of time to take away that newness of the botti.
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I was thinking perhaps something like Dolcetto or whatever lower-tier wine the producer has available in sufficient quantity.
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Iâve a recollection that Barbera was often put into new barrels, which in later years would house nebbiolo
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Close enough to water 
Joke aside, one of the other varieties would make sense.