Barolo and Barbaresco Annual Report: Beauty and the Beast

Piedmont’s most recent vintages for Barolo and Barbaresco, 2019 and 2020 respectively, couldn’t be more different. The former is very tannic and sometimes austere while the latter is fresh and balanced with an alluring drinkability and subtle structure. I like to call them “Beauty and the Beast.”

“The 2019 has grippy tannins,” said Giovanni Gaja of the Gaja winery and son of Angelo Gaja, the famous vintner of the Langhe. “The 2019 expresses Barolo with all those tannins. They are not polished. There is an austerity. The acidity is high, and it accentuates the tannins. The potential is there but it will take time to come around.

He added while tasting the Gaja 2020 Barbarescos, including the Sori Tildin and Sori San Lorenzo, at his offices in the town of Barbaresco: “2020 is textbook nebbiolo. I just love it. I particularly love the vintage. It is not only remembered for Covid but these wines as well. It’s an upgraded 2018. It has more structure. It’s a wonderful vintage. You can drink it young, but it will age. It has pleasure and it has structure. The wines are flexible.”

I must admit that I was expecting great things from the 2019 vintage while tasting about 400 Barolos and Barbarescos in mid-June with Associate Editor Andrii Stetsiuk, particularly after all the hype from some producers and wine merchants about how great and classic the year was. In all, we tasted 626 Barolos and Barbarescos for this report.

Of course, I did find a few great and a number of outstanding bottles from 2019, although I remain a little concerned with the slightly mature colors of some wines already and the dry and austere tannins of others. My experience is that tannins like those seldom resolve themselves.

However, the top wines I tasted from the vintage from both bottle and barrel were beautiful. It seems that producers who picked their nebbiolos later, such as the third week of October, made the best wines, with polished tannins and normal colors. Most still need four to five years of bottle age but they are classic Barolos.

“We have three great vintages with 2019, 2020 and 2021,” said Roberto Conterno of Giacomo Conterno, who poured a marvelous quality barrel sample of his famous blended Barolo, Monfortino. He obviously made one of the best 2019s I tasted. “2019 is great for us. Cold vintages are always more dangerous than warm ones. You can make an error with the various processes. Nebbiolo is not an easy grape. It is one of those varieties. It really depends on the soil and microclimate. It has really powerful tannins and these wines are not sweet and round. It can be difficult.”

Added Oscar Arrivabene, the winemaker for Domenico Clerico: “2019 is a really classic vintage. It’s like 2013. You smell it and it smells of Barolo. It’s probably not the most pleasant vintage in the last decade but it screams of Barolo. 2019 we had to be careful because of so many tannins. It was a year that it was hard to handle with harder tannins and less color.”

Beppe Caviola, the consulting enologist and winemaker for his family’s winery, Ca’Viola, as well as other wineries such as Damilano, agreed. “The tannins in the 2019s can be very chewy and austere,” he said. “They can be tough. I prefer the 2020.”

The growing season in 2019 was variable and relatively cool for part of the year as well as slightly rainy, except for the mid-summer. Most producers picked their nebbiolos in October. Two intense days of rain in the middle of the harvest also added to the complexity of the harvest. It seems that winemakers who harvested grapes later produced the best Barolos. Some obviously picked their grapes a little too early, so the tannins in their Barolos are austere.

They may have also overcompensated in their fermentations, extracting fewer tannins and color material from the grape skins. This could be why their nebbiolos already have a slightly garnet or even brown edge. The end result is many austere wines that need bottle age, although their slightly mature ruby color seems like a problem. I am inclined to drink them earlier even if they are so tannic.

“The anthocyanins were not stable,” said Renzo Cotarella, the CEO of the Marchesi Antinori wine empire in Italy, which includes the Prunotto winery in the Langhe. “It was the maceration, and people were doing less and so color dropped out. You don’t macerate less in a year like 2019. You do it differently. You need to do various things to make it work.”

By comparison, the 2020s, and 2021s for that matter, are much friendlier. And they were easier vintages except for the heat. I tasted about a hundred 2020 Barbarescos, and they were almost all an absolute joy to taste. They also were so attractive that you wanted to finish the bottles. But they have the stuffing and tannin backbone to age.

“2020 seems like 2000,” said Bruna Giacosa, who made the amazing Bruno Giacosa Falletto Barbaresco Rabajà 2020. I also rated her 2000 Bruno Giacosa Falletto Barolo Falletto Vigna Le Rocche Riserva 100 points on release. “The vintage has richness with elegance and structure.”

Added Gaja, "I am really happy to see Barbaresco return to where it is supposed to be” with the 2020. He also hinted that a number of his single vineyards were put into the general blend of Barbaresco in 2018 and 2019.

According to Caviola, 2020 was a much easier vintage, producing wonderfully ripe grapes with good acidities. Lots of rain in late spring provided plentiful water reserves for the vineyards to carry them through the hot and dry summer, despite some pressure from diseases such as mildew. Hot days and cool nights helped maintain acidities and perfumes. The harvest was almost a couple of weeks earlier than in 2019 and the crop was slightly more abundant. Every winemaker I interviewed was positive about the vintage.

“I really like the vintage,” said Alessandro di Gresy of Tenute Cisa Asinari dei Marchesi di Gresy, a key producer of Barbaresco. “The wines have such beauty and drinkability.”

Besides currently released vintages, we also tasted a number of late-released wines, particularly 2016s and 2015s, as well as even older wines. More wine producers in Piedmont offer special releases with anything from seven to 10 years after the harvest. It gives buyers the opportunity to buy and drink wines that have aged in the wineries’ cellars.

The best of our tasting was the amazing Damilano Barolo Cannubi Riserva 1752 2016. The Damilano family has made one of the greatest Cannubis ever with this late release. They have the largest holding of this esteemed vineyard, about 11 hectares in total, and they chose the very best to go into this bottling. It is a reference from a benchmark vintage for the Langhe. It’s so powerful and structured with toned and muscular tannins that run the length of the wine. Classic structure. A perfect wine.

It was also pleasing to taste some 2018s again. As I wrote last year, I believe the vintage was unjustly maligned and the wines are delicious in most cases. They will also age but clearly not as long as 2015, 2016 and 2017. “The 2018s are so beautiful,” said di Gresy's father, Alberto, who made a wonderful Tenute Cisa Asinari dei Marchesi di Gresy Barbaresco Martinenga Camp Gros Riserva 2018. “We were a bit worried at the beginning, but they are so fine and elegant.”

There’s certainly no need to worry in finding a great bottle of Barolo or Barbaresco recently released on the market. There’s definitely something out there for you regardless of whether it’s a beauty or a beast.

– James Suckling, Editor/Chairman

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