From a Reader Question: Why do Some Barolos Taste so Different from Other Barolos?

When I "announced' that I was going to restart this blog on a semi-regular basis, I also solicited topics. After all, one of the biggest reasons I stopped doing this blog for quite a while was that it is really difficult to come up with fresh ideas that I know enough about to write off the top of my head. One of the first requests that I got was to explain why there is so much difference in taste profile from one Barolo to another.

For starters, I don't know when the difference becomes so much. Is so much a lot, a little, or somewhere in between? I suppose that's in the eye of the beholder.

Before we get into the actual topic here, let's get to Barolo. If you're coming with me, we're going to fly from Atlanta to Milan (Milano if you prefer) and try to sidestep the Winter Olympic traffic. It's cool, but not frigid today and the "nuclear snow" as the ski mountaneering expert described it yesterday has stopped. The drive from Milan to Barolo is not extremely difficult despite the mountains terrain. Driving through the small Piemonte (Piemonte literally meaning foothills (of the Italian Alps)) villages of Asti and Alba, we arrive in the tiny village of Barolo about 2 hours later. And while the village is indeed tiny (think of a 1 stoplight town in the US), the wine region of Barolo is a bit larger.

It's math time. And with apologies to those who think math is the spawn of Satan, you have this little thing called a down arrow and you may use it to skip the math.

The wine region or Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG) of Barolo is about 2000 hectares. Breaking out my mental abacus, at 259 hectares (actually, some foolish person made the more accurate conversion 258.999 hectares to the square mile, but that's just plain obnoxious) to the square mile, we learn that the DOCG is about 7.8 square miles.

Let's assume for the moment that Barolo is a perfect circle (of course, it's not). Then doing some more mental abacus work, 7.8 divided by pi is just a little bit less than 2.5, and taking the square root of that tells us that the circular Barolo has a radius of just under 1.6 miles. 

That's actually instructive because if we think about where we are sitting right now (yes, I know, you are sitting in a different place than I am) and venture 1.6 miles in one direction and then repeat that process from our current chair to a different 1.6 mile away destination, it's pretty likely that the geography has changed and maybe significantly.

Wait, there's more. 

That little 7.8 square mile area that produces georgeous tannic and acidic wines that are among the most ageworthy on earth is broken into 11 communes. Of the 11, 5 are well-known, similarly to how well-known the names of all the moons of Saturn are to all but astronomers while the other 6 are more obscure than that. Outside of the commune consisting of the Village of Barolo, probably the next best know is Serralunga d'Alba. 

Convinced that they are pretty obscure?

One of the reasons that this is important, however, is that generally speaking, each commune has characteristics all its own -- a microclimate, soil, terrain, sun exposure of the best places to grow grapes. Each of these elements makes a wine different. Just as different, in fact, as the difference in climates in growing seasons. 

For those looking for really good Barolo as compared to really not very good Barolo, let's consider three consecutive vintages for the Nebbiolo grapes grown there.

2014 was unbearably hot and dry and the fickle Nebbiolo grapes rebelled making for wines that were consistent only in their bitterness. 2015 was cool and wet resulting in an early harvest. Why is that bad? DOCG Barolo wines must be at least 13% ABV. Ok, who cares about that? Well, you need to. As grapes sit on the vines, their sugar content increases and as sugar content increases, so does the alcoholic potential of the resultant wine. But a wine with little sugar content that has to get to 13% ABV will lose its acidity, one of the hallmarks of Nebbiolo and therefore Barolo. So, skip the 2015s.

2016 on the other hand was near perfect. Moderate temperatures with consistently warm days and cool nights. The diurnal shift produces a grape with more acidity. Chemistry, baby! The lack of meaningful rain or of extreme heat allowed for a very late harvest giving the winemakers tremendous flexibility in producing great wines at a minimum of 13% ABV.

Each commune produces a differing style of Barolo. And sometimes, even within a commune, the wines are distinctly different within a particular vintage.

So how do you know which one to buy?

That's really difficult. Find a producer you like and buy their bottlings. Stick to the better vintages. And if you want a more refined Barolo, go for the Riserva. Regular Barolo must be aged at least 38 months, 18 of those on oak while the Riserva adds another 24 month total aging requirement on top of that.

They're great wines, they'll tend to age gracefully for at least 25 years, and the best ones will certainly outlive me (and probably you unless you are pretty darn young right now).

So enjoy, learn your communes (no, skip that step), and figure out your favorite producers in your price range.