Varietals similar to Nebbiolo?

WINE TALK
81

Agreed with no reservations :slight_smile: [cheers.gif]

82

I think few have that aspiration in mind when they make Freisa as you mentioned, on the other hand if they can age well - yes no doubt. With the ambition, even more would I believe.

Had G. Mascarello’ Toetto 2004 a year or two ago. Drinking great, sure it will reach the 20 year mark with grace. If severed blind, could it be mistake for serious Nebbiolo(?), possible. Many flavors and the tast profile can be very similar, acidity as well, while maybe tannins… they can be a bit rougher around the edges compared to Nebbiolo. If that gets further polished with further time, even more likely.

Sadly Principiano stopped producing his Freisa, but even a humble made version of that wine ages quite decent (opened a 2011 following this thread), though I love(d) its vibrant youthful phase perhaps even more.

1 Like
83

As usual, I agree with everything here. From my perspective, people like Francesco de Franco, Arcuri, and Cataldo Calabretta are making some of the most exciting red wines in Italy these days. Also, those Ippolito riservas from the '80s and '90s can be nothing short of phenomenal.
(Aside from Gaglioppo, Odoardi’s Savuto wines from the '90s were also fabulous and have aged really, really well, developing a very classic profile.)

84

Well, this one popped into mind, for starters:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAdGUTWnhRi/

I certainly agree with you that there are sadly very few producers that make Freisa into more serious/ambitious wines, but those that do, can make some really excellent wines. And, as you said, not Gestalt Nebbiolo, but instead - as corroborating comments above prove - into a relatively similar style of wine. I’d argue that much closer to any other Piedmontese red variety and closer to almost any other variety in Italy. I haven’t had older versions of Giuseppe Rinaldi’s or GB Burlotto’s Freisas, but they are definitely very ambitious wines for Freisa and relatively Nebbiolo-like in quality. For example in our Burlotto tasting some years back, I thought their Freisa was much closer to their Barolo than their Langhe Nebbiolo! Not perhaps aromatically, but in almost every other aspect.

EDIT: I’ve also had Kyè a few times. An impressive wine in its own right, but I’ve never been a big fan of it, since it feels super-big and heavy for a Freisa. However, the wines I’ve had have been 2007 and 2011, which were vintages not really known for poised and elegant wines. :smiley: I’d love to see if Kyè would be more my kind of wine in cooler vintages!

2 Likes
85

OK, here I can finally disagree without any reservations :slight_smile:. I’ve kind of had plenty of those over the years and I just don’t see it [head-bang.gif]

1 Like
86

[shrug.gif] I’m happy to agree that we disagree. :smiley:

87

OK, thanks to this comment somehow, now I think I can finally put my finger on it. The reason I originally disagreed on this is that I don’t think I’ve ever had a single Freisa (I don’t really keep records, but, off the top of my head, I reckon I must have tried at least 15 different producers covering a span of about 20 vintages) that, at least in relative terms and in varying degrees, didn’t have a slightly splodgy quality to it, for lack of a better term. Not really a high-precision, high-resolution grape variety in my book. Has plenty of other qualities, just not really Nebbiolo-like to me. Not with age, and not otherwise.
Might be wrong, of course. Not like I’ve had thousands or even hundreds of these.

88

Ah ha! That explains everything! [wink.gif]

I didn’t like the Vajra Kye either.

89

Levity seems a bit hard to come by these days champagne.gif