A Little Piedmont for Christmas
Barolo, so the received wisdom goes, ought to be aged with a fervour approaching the absurd. Some adherents will tell you that a new vintage might be ready when you're on the golf course and approaching your 70s. Perhaps this is an exaggeration but the received wisdom is Barolo needs time, and a lot of it (the great Beppe Rinaldi famously declared “my wine is never ready to drink!”, to which we say, “we’re thirsty”).
Yet in conversations with collectors recently, we've noticed a change. Those who have spent a lifetime collecting Bordeaux, ageing it and cellaring it, are increasingly turning their attention to Piedmont. For some, it's the prospect of wines that offer extraordinary complexity without necessarily demanding decades in the cellar. Delicious, rewarding, complex, ethereal and, increasingly, approachable in their youth. What gives?
Perhaps it's fitting, then, that we've just landed a rather exciting shipment of Italian wines at Glengarry, with some particularly interesting arrivals from Piedmont. And with Christmas approaching, there seems little reason to keep them to ourselves.
Consider Tenuta Cucco, for instance. Until not that long ago, this was a property that had almost disappeared from the wine maps. A far cry from 1976’s Carta del Barolo, which ranked it just below the greatest crus. By 1990 Slow Food’s Wine Atlas of the Langhe spoke of the vineyard in the past tense:
“Cucco used to belong to Dottor Giuseppe Cappellano, a celebrated figure in the world of Barolo, who was quick to acquire this superb plot when the opportunity arose”
Used to, you will note, is the operative word here. The brief paragraph almost sighs with forlorn nostalgia, in the way old tweed-clad men in their members club make a passing reference to a dinner from fifty years ago.
This was the case until 2015, when the Rossi Cairo family acquired the estate and set about restoring its fortunes. At this point, we'll also point out that a large 14th-century castle looms over Serralunga d'Alba, regarding the surrounding vineyards with a kind of patrician authority. The family is well known for their biodynamic wines at La Raia, and they were quick to recognise the potential of a property that had, by then, faded somewhat into obscurity.
Consider their 2021 Barolo Cerrati, which is resplendent in the luscious notes you expect from Barolo — dark fruits, firm tannins, considerable structure and the unmistakable character of Nebbiolo grown in a warm year. There's plenty of substance here, yet also a wonderful freshness. As James Suckling's team observed of the 2021 vintage more broadly, many of these Barolos will be showing beautifully after just another year or two in bottle, while retaining their remarkable ageing potential.
Well, that is not quite decades in the cellar. The Cerrati is quite delicious to explore now, particularly with food, and will no doubt reward patience. No wonder some Francophiles we know have gone over to Piedmont for a little supper of black truffles and Barolo.
Consider, perhaps, throwing away the Barolo classification altogether and casting caution to the wind. You'll find winemakers throughout Piedmont making wines that sit rather comfortably outside the confines of old-world expectations.
Take Sette, a small producer and estate in Nizza Monferrato, includes vines up to 75 years old, and the vineyards have been painstakingly brought under organic management. There's a refreshing lack of pretension to the whole enterprise.
Their Barbera d'Asti invokes the usual power of a Barbera, think intense red fruit, berries perhaps crushed a little in the midday sun, yet has a wonderful lightness to it. It doesn't demand age, though it would no doubt reward some. It's good for drinking now: there's none of that fusty old-world Italian adherence to ageing it until you're 90 years old.
And the rest of the Sette range is equally worth exploring. Grignolino, Rosato, Nizza and delightful litre bottles. These are wines made for drinking, preferably with food, friends and very little ceremony.
Piedmont, continues to evolve.
There's still a dense map of wineries that feels rather like reading a particularly complicated flight map, and there are, of course, the great old houses with their Barolo. We currently have an astonishing Damilano 2016 in stock; it's had enough time in bottle now to show remarkable tension and fluidity, the sort of wine that reminds you exactly why people became so obsessed with Barolo in the first place.
Yet Piedmont is a region in flux. Forgotten vineyards have been brought back into prominence, old estates have found new custodians, and a new generation of winemakers is exploring what these remarkable grapes and vineyards can do. The climate undergoes seasons of tests. Some remain fiercely traditional, others are rather less concerned with convention. All, ultimately, are interested in making good wine.
Our latest Italian arrivals offer a little of both worlds. Wines for the cellar, certainly, but plenty to open and enjoy over Christmas and the summer ahead.
We'll be returning to these producers in January, with a closer look at their vineyards, histories and the people behind the bottles. There are some rather good stories to tell.
For now, the wines have landed. And we're thirsty.
