A Deep Dive into Barolos, Wurttemberg’s Winemaking Innovation and Virginia Rises: Weekly Tasting Report (Jan 10-16)

James kicked off the year in our office in Hong Kong tasting together with four of the JamesSuckling.com tasters/editors as well as our new executive editor, Jim Gordon, who flew in from Napa Valley to be together for five days. They dove deep into more than 200 Barolos as well as a few dozen Barbarescos. The majority of the Barolos were 2020, an excellent year that had a very balanced growing season with sunshine, warmth and ample water. The Barbarescos were 2021, which was the first glimpse of the vintage in bottle, and they suggested more structure and tension than the thoroughly delicious and approachable 2020s.

Pio Cesare winemaker Cesare Benvenuto called his 2020s, which James tasted on Zoom with he and Pio Cesare owner Federica Boffa, “elegant" and “comparable” to such classically balanced years of the past as 1998, which are drinking beautifully at the moment but gave pleasure early in their evolution.

“Some people said it was slightly too warm and approachable, but we believe in the 2020,” Benvenuto said.

James’s first impression is the same with 2020. By comparison, he noted in his report last year that the 2019 vintage produced some great Barolos, but that some were slightly too austere and lean due to early picking and some rain during the harvest that produced unripe tannins. Stick to the top names.

The 2020 looks to be more homogenous and a year when just about everyone made outstanding bottles, James said.

Stefano Gagliardo of Gianni Gagliardo told James during another Zoom tasting last week that he is happy with the quality of his 2020s (James says his wines are significantly better than 2019) and that the vintage will be an excellent one to introduce new consumers to the virtue of great nebbiolo because of their beautiful and attractive perfumes and balance of ripe and polished tannins.

Benvenuto added that the 2020 vintage was an appealing year because it also showed the distinct differences of different vineyard sites as well as the regions of Barbaresco and Barolo. In 2019, the hard tannins often dominated the young Barolos, and it was hard to see through the phenolics.

Among the top Barolos Senior Editor Zekun Shuai tasted over the past week, the “cru” Monvigliero from Vietti, in the northernmost part of Barolo, captured our attention with its elegance, fragrance and idiosyncratic character.

According to Vietti’s winemaker, Eugenio Palumbo, their Monvigliero has a distinctively Mediterranean, savory/saline character, which he believes could be the result of various factors including the use of 60 percent whole-cluster fermentation and the influence of the terroir.

“Although it is one of the youngest soils in the Barolo region, it is also the last corner for growing fantastic grapes,” Palumbo explained in a Zoom call. “It is also the area known for producing Barolos in whole-cluster fermentation with ripe grapes and stems,” he said, referring to Fabio Alessandria’s Burlotto Monvigliero, a renowned Barolo that uses 100 percent whole cluster.

The Vietti Monvigliero is nothing short of extraordinary, with captivating undertones of thyme, white pepper, and mezcal smokiness. The wine is not loud, though, and the palate is not about power. Instead, it is soft-spoken but expressive, delicate but firm, with nuance and symmetry.

We also uncovered two exceptional bottles of 2021 Bordeaux in this report. The Château Beauséjour Duffau-Lagarrosse St.-Emilion 2021 is one of the highlights from this extremely challenging vintage, which produced fresh but lighter, linear reds, many with boney tannins and much lighter alcohol levels.

2021 is a vintage we believe produced many bottles that can be enjoyed now, or at least approached sooner rather than later. Qualities such as intensity, mid-palate flesh and concentration take precedence over freshness and acidity in the tasting of 2021 wines, and in the case of Beauséjour delivered a wine showing polish, finesse and complexity of the fruit with sophisticated and seamlessly woven oak. The impeccable balance, filigreed tannins and remarkable length make it one of the finest offerings from the Right Bank in 2021.

The bottled white Bordeaux wines from 2021 fared very well in our tastings, confirming James’ earlier observations during En Primeur and echoing Pierre Lurton’s statement that 2021 has the potential to be a remarkable year for white wines. The zesty freshness, tension and sharpened acidity form the backbone of many of these great whites, and the best we came across this week was the Domaine de Chevalier Pessac-Léognan Blanc 2021 – a serious, good-value Pessac-Leognan offering as always, with great depth, complexity and a superb persistence.

WURTTEMBERG'S WEALTH OF INNOVATION

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott set off on a tasting trip to the German wine region of Wurttemberg, which he has long considered grossly underrated, and was pleased to find a wealth of winemaking ambition and innovation.

The region has long focused on dry wines, with reds dominant over the past couple generations, but the most astonishing wine Stuart tasted was a limited-production dessert wine from the muskateller (muscat a petit grains) grape – the Graf Neipperg Muskateller Württemberg Schlossberg Trockenbeerenauslese 2018. This almost perfect wine was as surprisingly fresh as it was concentrated and full-bodied, with an exotic fruit coulis character (think passion fruit, mangosteen and mango) and the almost endless finish super-precise and totally brilliant.

Stuart was very impressed by  the entire extensive tasting of Graf Neipperg wines, especially the stunning Graf Neipperg Syrah Württemberg S.E. 2019. Who would think that a German red of any kind could be intensely sooty and smoky? This is a character we associate with Hermitage in the Rhone rather than this German region that lies within country’s industrial heartland. And this wine steamrolls through at the finish but remains beautifully balanced.

The other red that really stood out was the Graf Neipperg Spätburgunder Württemberg Ruthe GG 2020. For the challenging vintage, this great pinot noir had black cherry, forest berry and pomegranate aromas plus spicy oak. Bold, with abundant tannins on the expansive palate, it then surprised with a remarkable elegance at the finish for this region. And this is only the second vintage of this wine!

Another astonishing pinot noir was the Schnaitmann Spätburgunder Württemberg Lämmler GG 2021, which was extraordinarily elegant with a delicate sweetness at its heart. The super-fine tannins and extremely long finish of cooked red beets and earth set the crown on this pinot masterpiece.

However, Stuart preferred another wine from the great Lammler site, the Schnaitmann Lemberger Württemberg Lämmler GG 2020, which he found to be a deep well of forest berries, baking spice, wet earth and vanilla.

It’s as focused as it is concentrated, with a fabulous elegance and a note of violets. By the way, lemberger is the grape identical to what the Austrians call blaufrankisch and the Hungarians call kekfrankos.

In spite of these standout wines, for Stuart the red wine of his trip was the Albrecht Schwegler Württemberg Granat 2019. This is an enormously structured red with an imposing and plush tannin structure, or exactly the type of wine the world least expects from Germany!

It has extremely deep dark berry, bark and forest floor aromas, but is only just beginning to show it's true class. This is a very unconventional blend of the Austrian zweigelt and lemberger grapes with cabernet sauvignon and merlot.

Winery founder Albrecht Schwegler poured the 1999 vintage of this wine for Stuart and his family blind and it was so vibrant they all guessed it a decade younger than it really is.

The Albrecht Schwegler Württemberg Beryll 2019 is the second wine of Granat, and this vintage takes it to a new level. Both plush and fleshy, it has fantastic balance and a very long, structured finish.

When Stuart and James started out as wine journalists in the 1980s, the Graf Adelmann estate was the most renowned producer in the Wurttemberg region, particularly for reds from the lemberger grape. That was the work of the late Michael Graf Adelmann, but his son Felix has been running the estate since 2011 and has put it back on course.

Pinot gris is a grape variety Germany produces a lot of wine from, and the hit rate  is good, but few wines really stand out. The Graf Adelmann Grauburgunder Württemberg Oberer Berg GG 2019 is a wonderful exception to that rule. It has stacks of melon aroma, plus notes of mango and papaya, but is not a jot overdone, and the combination of textural complexity and freshness is an absolute delight.

RISING VIRGINIA

We have also been tasting a slew of wines from Virginia, on the East Coast of the United States. There’s a fantastic selection of varieties in this week’s report with a dozen wines at 93 points or above, highlighting the Virginia wine scene’s rising quality in the last four decades or so.

Our highest-rated wines from Virginia are from Barboursville Vineyards and its plantings in the rolling foothills of the state’s Piedmont region. Aptly, they are one of the best nebbiolo producers in the country. The Barboursville Vineyards Nebbiolo Virginia Reserve 2020 is a firm and deep red that is best approached in a few years but already exudes beautiful red fruit, orange and tar notes. We were equally impressed with their Cabernet Franc Virginia Goodlow Mountain 2021, where the essence of cabernet franc is captured with fine tannins, bright acidity and black fruit laced with cedar and iron.

Also check out the Barboursville Vineyards Virginia Octagon 2020, which combines merlot and cabernet franc in an elegant, intricate and polished Pomerol-style blend. They have also produced a second vintage of their new white blend, the Barboursville Vineyards Virginia Nascent 2019, which is a lively, floral and refreshing meld of viognier, vermentino and falanghina.

FROM THE JAMESSUCKLING.COM ARCHIVE: Check out this video from 2018 on James and crew highlighting the amazing American wines being made outside the U.S. West Coast. 

Early Mountain has consistently produced one of the top chardonnays from the East Coast in recent years. The Early Mountain Chardonnay Virginia Quaker Run Vineyard 2021 is made from a block of the oldest vines of chardonnay from the mountainside Quaker Run vineyard, and it’s wonderfully fresh and elegant, with a delicious combination of lemon, cream and cashew running throughout. Check out the chardonnays from Linden and Ankida Ridge, too.

We tasted some excellent petit verdot, with the best produced by Lost Creek Winery, Michael Shaps, Mountain & Vine and Muse Vineyards. It’s actually the fourth-most-planted European variety in the state and is able to ripen and produce fruit-driven, standalone wines in Virginia’s warm climate, unlike in Bordeaux, where it plays a more minor role in blends.

Last and perhaps most interesting, check out exciting whites (both dry and with some sweetness) made from petit manseng, a grape hailing from southwest France that has seen a rapid rise in plantings in Virginia. Our favorite was the Early Mountain Petit Manseng Virginia 2021 – a dry, waxy and tangy expression.

– James Suckling, Zekun Shuai, Stuart Pigott and Claire Nesbitt contributed reporting. 

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

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