Barbaresco (wine)

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Location of the province of Cuneo
Vineyards near Treiso
Barbaresco

The Barbaresco and Barbaresco Riserva denote dry Italian red wines from the province of Cuneo in Piedmont , northern Italy , which have a controlled and protected designation of origin (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita - DOCG )

Cultivation

Barbaresco is a wine that comes from the Langhe region in Piedmont , more precisely from the area around the towns of Barbaresco , Treiso and Neive . Since, like the Barolo, it is made from the Nebbiolo vine , it is often referred to as “the little brother” of the Barolo. The two villages Barbaresco and Barolo are barely 20 km apart as the crow flies. In contrast to the Barolo, the hills of the Barbaresco are slightly lower and have a different soil structure, so that the wine is less bulky and more velvety. In 1966 it was classified as a DOC , on October 3, 1980 it was recognized as a DOCG . The Barbaresco is also called "Queen's Wine".

In 2017, 31,446 hectoliters of DOCG wine were produced.

properties

The Nebbiolo grape ripens late, it is often not harvested until October, when the fog (= la nebbia ) hits the vineyards. The DOCG regulations for the Barbaresco stipulate a minimum aging period of 26 months, nine of which in wooden barrels (38 months for Barolo, of which 18 in wooden barrels). A Riserva must be stored for a total of 50 months (nine of which in wooden barrels) before it can be sold.

description

Also applies to the Riserva wine:

  • Color : garnet red
  • Smell : intense and characteristic
  • Taste : dry, full-bodied, harmonious
  • Alcohol content : at least 12.5% ​​vol.
  • Acidity : at least 4.5 g / l
  • Dry extract content : at least 22 g / l

history

At the beginning of the 19th century, Barbaresco was a mostly sweet wine made from Nebbiolo grapes . Due to the late ripening of the Nebbiolo, fermentation took place in the cold winter months. The low temperatures in the wine cellars meant that alcoholic fermentation often came to a standstill and the resulting wine was not completely fermented.

Today's Barbaresco was created similar to the Barolo with the help of the French oenologist Louis Oudart. He was appointed by the Marchesa Giulia Falletti di Barolo around 1850 (perhaps as early as 1838) to the municipality of Barolo to give her advice on her winery there. In the cellar, Oudart relied on techniques from the cool Champagne , where this fermentation problem was known. Oudart relocated the fermentation process to newly constructed underground wine cellars, ensured constant temperatures and improved cellar hygiene. Oudart also supported the Count and later Prime Minister Camillo Benso di Cavour on his vineyard in Grinzane Cavour. On these wineries, the Barolo was created in today's sense, as a dry red wine. After the new type of wine of Barolo had emerged, Oudart worked in the Castello di Neive on the reinterpretation of Barbaresco.

The genesis of Barolo and Barbaresco is often portrayed in this way, but there are also different representations. Some historians report that Oudart moved to Piedmont at the instigation of Camilo Benso Cavour; in this context the given year figures differ slightly. Still other sources name the oenologist Paolo Francesco Staglieno as the main developer of the dry Barolo. He worked from 1836 to the 1840s both at Camilo Benso Cavour and at the royal winery in Pollenzo .

After numerous crises in viticulture, triggered by the phylloxera plague, the two world wars, fascist rule and finally the economically difficult times of the post-war years, in which massive rural exodus began, the Langhe was an impoverished region in the middle of the 20th century. Then in 1986 the methanol scandal rocked the Italian wine market and the output of Barbaresco collapsed. From this low point, however, a boom developed, which was made possible by a newly awakened awareness of quality and several good vintages in a row.

Creation of Barbaresco

The founding of the Cantina Sociale di Barbaresco in 1894 can be seen as the hour of birth of Barbaresco. With the 1894 vintage, the combined producers of the Cantina brought the first wines to the market, which were officially called Barbaresco. Before this time, most of the Nebbiolo grapes produced in the Barbaresco area were used for the production of Barolo and there is only sporadic information about wines that bear the name of their place of origin. In the mid-1920s, the Cantina sociale di Barbaresco had to close for economic reasons. It was not until 1958 that the producers' cooperative was re-established under the name Produttori del Barbaresco . This is still considered to be one of the most renowned winegrowers' cooperatives in Italy, as it has achieved a very high quality standard over many years and has marketed some of its wines as single vineyard selections (cru) since 1967.

Controversy between traditionalists and modernists

The clashes between traditionalists and modernists, which caused a sensation in the Barolo and Barbaresco regions for a long time, are now widely regarded as having been overcome. Many oenological exaggerations on the one hand, as well as backward cellar techniques on the other, are now a thing of the past. In the period after the Second World War, the Langhe wines were often considered unclean, characterized by hard tannins and almost inaccessible. From the 1970s onwards, many sons of winegrowers moved to French Burgundy , from where they returned to their homeland with new cellar and viticulture techniques. Some of these changes, which found their way into domestic production methods, were more modern cellar hygiene, the use of barriques , modern fermentation techniques and the rigorous reduction in the harvest ("green harvest"). The barriques replaced the usual large barrels ( botti ), which after many years of use could cause unclean tones in the wine. In addition, the new wood of the barriques gave the wine flavors reminiscent of vanilla, and the natural grape tannins were replaced by the tannins of the wood, which were perceived as softer. The goal was to produce more accessible, softer and more fruity wines overall.

Probably the best-known representative of the modernists was Angelo Gaja , who launched his first Barbaresco, partially matured in barriques, on the market in 1978. This was immediately so successful with Italian and international wine critics that it found many imitators. Another innovation initiated by Angelo Gaja was the use of international grape varieties. For some of his wines, he used the local grape varieties Nebbiolo and Barbera as well as the international varieties Cabernet Sauvignon , Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot . These new techniques resulted in new styles of wine, with which the wines of the Langhe were perceived as a significant quantity on the international market for the first time. It was possible to achieve sales prices that were previously considered astronomical and the resulting effect radiated into the entire Italian wine world. The formerly rustic, difficult to access, but perhaps also mysterious wines now often turned into those that were unnaturally dark, over-extracted and characterized by distinct wood spiciness. There was therefore a risk that these wines could lose their identity and uniqueness, which led to violent counter-reactions from the traditionally oriented winemakers.

The official layer map

For the 2007 wine year, DOCG Barbaresco was the first Italian wine-growing region to introduce a legally stipulated geographic map. The corresponding regulations for the Barolo came into force three years later.

There have been several attempts in the history of the Barbaresco and Barolog area to work out a location classification. Essentially, two influential historical sources are named, which have flowed into the current attempt to arrive at an official classification:

  • As early as 1879, the agronomist Lorenzo Fantini published the first naming and classification of localities and individual locations with his work Monografia sulla Viticoltura ed Enologia nella Provincia di Cuneo .
  • In 1976 the winemaker Renato Ratti published an influential site map, which for the first time provided a precise determination of first-class individual sites. However, this only referred to the Barolo.

From the 1980s onwards, more and more vintners became self-employed and marketed their wine independently. Up until that time the market was dominated by the large trading houses. They bought the grapes from the winemakers, vinified them and finally sold the wine. It was customary at the time to blend the wines from the entire area with one another; Nevertheless, everyone involved did have a traditional knowledge of which sites produce the best wines. By 1990, numerous geographical wine names had been created, some of which were based on official cadastral names, names of the consortium or historical location names, but sometimes were just imaginary names. In order to master this increasingly confusing situation, the conservation consortium commissioned the communities in the growing area to draw up a list of the vineyard locations. Local agricultural commissions, which are mainly made up of winegrowers, compiled a directory for each municipality in which each location should have a unique name and should be clearly delimited by parcel. The experience of long-time residents, land register plans and numerous historical documents were incorporated into this work. The result is the “menzioni geografiche aggiuntive”, the additional geographical information that has been legally valid since the 2007 wine year within the DOCG regulations. These official location names say nothing about a possible qualitative potential, but are on an equal footing. So there is no official hierarchical order within the location name, as it exists in Burgundy , for example . Since many site names are of historical origin and there is traditional knowledge of the quality potential of individual vineyard sites, an “unofficial” hierarchy is still present and is also formed by the wine market and the prices to be achieved here. In everyday life, the word "Cru" has already established itself for the wines that bear this name. There are a total of 66 additional geographical indications that can be used according to the production rules (Article 7: Designazione e presentazione) . These differ legally from sub-zones, called Sottozona in Italian. For a Sottozona, the production regulations must be stricter than for the cultivation zone as a whole. (Compare Chianti or Valtellina ). There is the possibility of making the name of the location even more narrow by adding "vigna". For example Barbaresco Ovello (the additional geographical indication), Vigna Loreto. Only in this case do stricter production regulations apply according to DOCG regulations.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Map and list of growing areas on federdoc.com
  2. ↑ Viticulture in figures 2018. (PDF) In: VQPRD d'Italia 2018. federdoc.com, accessed on July 1, 2019 (Italian).
  3. ↑ a b c d DOCG production regulations and description for the Barbaresco , (Italian), on langhevini.it, accessed on July 1, 2019
  4. ↑ a b c d e Kerin O'Keefe: Barolo and Barbaresco - The King and Queen of Italian Wine University of California Press 2014 ISBN 978-0-520-27326-9
  5. ↑ Lorenzo Tablino, oenologist: Il vino e il territorio del Barbaresco , on: tablino.it
  6. ↑ Jancis Robinson : The Oxford Wine Lexicon Hallwag, Gräfe and Unzer, Munich 2003 ISBN 3-7742-0914-6
  7. ↑ Carta del Barolo
  8. ^ Journal Merum 6/13, ISSN  1660-8062
  9. ↑ Site map Barbaresco , on langhevini.it

literature

Web links