Or more aptly titled, How Many Bloggers Does It Take to Write About How Much They Dislike Excessive Oak in Barbera Until the Winemakers Stop Doing It. But firstly, we’ve made the news! The bloggers are the talk of the town. Fredric Koeppel (Bigger Than Your Head) reads the fine print as Michele Chiarlo begins his discussion of vine training methods.

We spent the day focused on the Nizza subzone of Asti. A small group of Asti winemakers (including Chiarlo) have spent heaps of dollar bills to test barbera’s vine training methods in hopes to further analyze the varietal’s acidity, tannin and color (and “improve” the wine). Which brings me to the main theme of the day…

on the left: guyot method. lighter more delicate color. on the right: the new cordon method and a darker more saturated color

What is in need of improvement exactly?  Beyond the need to pump up the color for aging (?) and reduce the amount of work in the vineyard, these experiments and changes made in the vine training open a larger discussion of the vinification of the barbera as well.  This is the when the day started to get interesting… after 2 full days of tasting Barbera d’Asti, most of us (journalists, buyers from all over the world)  were eager to start asking questions about the giant oaky elephant that’s been in the tasting room all week.

The oak of the wine had become the star of the show up until that point. What happened to the barbera? And more importantly, what should barbera actually be? It’s subjective, as wine always is. But the general consensus of my fellow tasters is that barbera should be what it always was, what it is at its purest form: a light, racy, high acidity, fruit driven wine.

as snow begins to fall in Nizza, we loaded in to another blind tasting

We moved locations to taste a slew of more Barberas from Nizza. This left us bewildered once again. The oak! Luckily, about 20 producers of the wines we had just tried were in attendance. What I will call the Nizza Oak Debate of 2010 began. For the sake of brevity as well as my lack of time I will list the main points discussed/argued and the resulting thoughts that dialogue left floating in my brain…

- The apparent need to create a universally more appealing style of wine specifically in hopes to sell more bottles to consumers.

- The American market (and all markets for that matter) and its supposed stylistic preference (big, fat Cali wines- is that what Italians think we only like?)

-Making barbera to taste like itself or just like every other non distinctive wine

-What makes a “good” wine? In the words of Michele Chiarlo, “A good wine is a wine that sells.”

-The manipulation of wine. How/if it should be altered to be something other than the true expression of the grape.

-The concept of creating a Superbarbera. Just typing that out makes me roll my eyes.

-Does a more “elegant” wine always mean less oak?

The debates remained heated as the temperatures outside continued to drop and the snow continued to fall. The producers defended themselves and we were left hoping to find a redeeming wine at our dinner table. Which we did in Andrea Faccio’s Villa Giada unoaked fresh 2009 Barbera D’Asti. As if sent from the wine gods above telling us to hold on for one more day.

Much more to write about- yesterday was filled with Barbera wines of Monferrato, a seriously awesome cellar tour and of course more eating and drinking. It was the day the Barbera 7 Got Their Groove Back. Stay tuned…

The guys doing what they do best. Jeremy- talking, Fredric- being a stone cold motha, Thor- smirking and Jon- looking like a Tom Ford model. First stop- a tasting of barbera senza solfiti (without sulfites) at Azienda Paolo Marcarino.

We tried a barbera that was blended with 20% dried grapes…a bit reductive and amarone like, otherwise known as bit “too much wine” via Cory. Also tasted was an extremely gulpable cortese (aka “grandpa wine” as says Jeremy) straight from the tank. Lovely little amaretti cookies were served with our final wine, a moscato d’asti, the region’s golden child.

Thor and the barbera soaked mouth of Mr. Stuart George.

As our little bus worked its way up the hills, blankets of snow crept onto the vineyard slopes. We reached the cellar  at Il Falchetto for more barbera. And more moscato. A surprise hit was their “Lurei” 2007 Barbera D’Asti which that morning wasn’t as well received in the blind tasting for whatever reason. The mysteries of the palate and the bottle…

As evening approached, it was time to hit the road again. We had another 37 producers to work through- before dinner.

Bread was broken and wine was shared with the winemakers spread throughout the dining room and around our tables. After dinner, the boys hit the town for an ice cold beer- a welcome change of pace for their wine drenched palates. This gal decided to call it a day and hit the hay. Today- another full day of barbera. Giddy up!

We’re tasting everything blind, hence the aluminum foil. The lineup is all barbera from Asti today. 2008, 2007 and 2006. So far, what sticks out to me is the use of french oak and whether or not it completely masks the barbera fruit or not. Which it does (when used with a heavy hand.) Barbera is at its best when it can stand alone. And when it can taste like barbera! The stylistic differences of Italian wines, especially in this area of the country, could be an entire other discussion.  A large one. Maybe I’ll get into that another time…

In situations like this, it can be difficult to say whether or not a wine would be enjoyed outside of the confines of this room. If we tasted all of these wines again at dinner tonight, while eating, I’m sure a lot of my notes would be completely different. All I can do is make observations and I am lucky enough to have at my disposal almost all of the barberas made in the country for my personal comparative study on the varietal. Which is what I am calling it.  Gotta get back to the wine. On to no. 59.

The picture above is one I took at the Banca del Vino in Pollenzo a few months ago. It is the home to an incredible collection of Italian wines within the University of Gastronomic Sciences in the heart of Piemonte wine country.

I fly back to that lovely place tomorrow evening and couldn’t be more excited. Not only because I am going to Italy (duh) but because I get to spend 4 days with one of my favorite grapes- barbera. To me, barbera wines are like old friends. The ones that you can be around 24 hours a day and never tire of. The ones, whom after 2 years of not seeing each other, conversations can flow forth effortlessly as if no time had passed at all. Without getting into acidity and tannins, fruit and body…I hope my simile makes some kind of sense. Barbera makes fun wine, drinkable wine, food friendly wine. Although by this time next week, I am sure I will have a whole lot more to say about it than that.

To give you a glimpse as to what is in store beyond the ridiculous amounts of barbera during Barbera Meeting 2010: barbera sans soufre, a tasting at Gaja with Angelo Gaja himself, tastings at Brovia and Produttori del Barbaresco, dinners and lunches galore (grignolino and oysters anyone?) and so many other crazy amazing things I am beginning to feel a little “we’re not worthy.”  I will be writing and posting and photographing like a mad woman so you’ll be able to experience it all with me. Catch you on the flip side…a presto.

]]> http://www.brunelloshavemorefun.com/2010/03/the-return-to-piemonte/feed/ 1 http://www.brunelloshavemorefun.com/2010/03/at-the-corner-of-delicious-faulty/ http://www.brunelloshavemorefun.com/2010/03/at-the-corner-of-delicious-faulty/#comments Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:56:46 +0000 whitney http://www.brunelloshavemorefun.com/?p=1728

I am feeling the need for brevity. Or perhaps, I am lazy. Instead of waxing on and on about the rest of my time at The Symposium for Professional Wine Writers – which I was just about to do – I will wrap it up in a pretty little bow. A bow made of pictures. And not so many words. Which is seriously ridiculous considering I am covering a wine WRITERS symposium. But let us move right along, lest we muck up the brevity.

Lunch in the Vintners Hall of Fame at CIA Greystone. So many barrels, so little time. I must say the meals (and wine, of course) at this conference probably beat most any other gathering of professionals in the country. Except for possibly a James Beard function. Or a dinner party at Thomas Keller’s house. Or the holiday party for any Batali-Bastianich outpost.

Wine Faults 101 with UC Davis’ Mark Krasnow. Luckily the plastic lids were firmly in place for most of this master class. Once removed, the aromas of a winemaker’s worst nightmares ran free. Brett and cork taint, oh my. Fault City, USA. If your next wine smells distinctly like either Band-Aid or horse stall, it has been “contaminated” with a yeast called brettanomyces. I say “contaminated” because some people like having that aroma present in the wine. And those some people are not just of the Burgundian persuasion, but me. Yes. I surprisingly found myself nose deep into the glass of “barnyard” brett not wanting to pull away. And yet- sort of disgusted. But intrigued. Like a car wreck. A car wreck of yeasts.

With faults still hanging in the air, Napa winemaker Michael Howell (Cain Vineyard), rushed into the room to our rescue (I had been hypnotized by the brett) and promptly blasted on the AC to a cellar temperature of 55 degrees. He said he needed to get the room back to neutral and since he was more comfortable in those arctic temperatures (I am officially a Californian now) and because we had non-faulted wines to focus on, by all means. This master class was a crash course in Bordeaux varietals. Michael brought along samples of each varietal Cain grows from its 2005 vintage. Those would be cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, malbec and petit verdot. We then tasted the wine those varietals were blended to create, the Cain 5. Really good wine. And I have to confess I had a special goosebump moment while tasting and smelling the malbec. Man. I’ve never ever considered myself a malbec fan, but jeeze. I could have remained there in that frigid room all day with that glass in my hand.

Just so you know, the Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies is a thing of beauty. It is every wine geek’s fantasy building full of laboratory styled tasting rooms and classrooms. Every station had a spitting/rinsing sink, completely white counter surfaces (to better see the color of the wine) and my personal favorite gadget- the light box. The photo above is of the merlot on the left and the malbec on the right. The color and clarity difference is very easy to see.

The symposium ended with an invitation to a fun event: the kick-off tasting for Premier Napa by Napa Valley Vintners. There were two rooms. One full of Napa chardonnay  and the other cabernet sauvignon. Not my two most favorite varietals in the world, but an interesting opportunity. The mission: vertical blind taste dozens of producers. Meaning, us tasters knew only the vintage (’06-’08 for chardonnay and ‘05-’07 for cabernet) and the varietal, not the winemakers. With pen and paper in hand I went down the line, one by one. Needless to say I got bored after the 10th chard. And even more restless after the 5th cabernet. Until, stomach rumbling for a Taylor’s Refresher burger, I just gave up and asked for the cheat sheet of producers. I have to admit that one of the chardonnays I actually liked was…the 2007 Cakebread chardonnay. Cakebread! Chardonnay! Malbec! What has become of me…

Well, if I have become anything after those 4 days in Napa, I hope it is more knowledgeable. I know I definitely left with more friends as well as admiration and respect for my fellow wine writers. It’s not the best paying gig around or the most stable, but it sure is fun.

First up, “What Wine Writers Need To Know about Winemaking” with Napa vintner and author Jeff Morgan. This proved to be a very interesting discussion in winemaking practices with a few lively debates. Including the somewhat hush hush practice of watering back wine. Jeff attests that many (read all) winemakers in Napa, are lowering the alcohol levels of their wine by adding water to the pre-fermentation juice. The warm temperatures on the West coast create really ripe fruit which means more sugars at harvest in turn creating a higher alcohol percentage.  Jeff believes this is happening more often than you think or than is ever spoken of and stands by watering back as a necessary tool (and by no means a marker of a bad winemaker or lesser wine.)

This opened up a larger debate on “real” wine and whether or not making a wine biodynamically or organically somehow magically makes it superior. Jeff thinks not. He believes the use of sulfur, which many biodynamic winemakers use at incredibly small doses if at all,  is imperative to creating a stable product that can withstand time and travel and possible oxidation.  He also asserts that adding chemicals to a wine during fermentation is not something that should be shunned. Copper, yeasts, tartaric acid and tannins are natural products in essence and help create a better wine.

As much as I love the natural wine movement (see Vini Veri group) and its wines, I see his point and agree to some extent. Making great wine is an art that has grown from hundreds of years of failures, experiments and new technologies. The wine made in 1786, I can guarantee, wasn’t as good as a wine made today. Therefore, why should those winemakers in Friuli in Northern Italy be making wine like their ancestors of centuries past? For the romanticism of it? For the cool factor? Good question. And one that I will leave unanswered.

The next session was titled “Tasting and Writing Exercise: Sensory Analysis vs. Wine Reviews” and was guided by Eric Asimov of the New York Times and CIA Greystone Chair of Wine Studies Karen MacNeil. Good old tasting notes. The bread and butter of the wine writer/critic and the most widely discussed topic in terms of opinion on what makes a good one. I tend to be of the opinion that my opinion doesn’t really matter. But, I’m also not the critic for a national publication that millions of people read in order to know what to buy at a wine shop. Therefore, describing what a wine is like is necessary. But, how to describe it…

We were given 6 wines. 3 pairs. Each pair was to be tasted and compared with a specific element in mind: tannins, acidity or body. Everyone in the room then wrote a brief tasting note on the wine they preferred of the two. The resulting copy was incredibly diverse and really great. Several brave souls read their notes aloud as did Eric and Karen. Eric talked about how you must lose the clinical evaluation and surrender to the fact that wine is contextual, mysterious and subjective (which is exactly why we love it.) To be able to impart a feeling of that wine to a reader is far more effective. He quoted keynote speaker Frances Mayes’ observation of a wine being “fruit basket fresh” and how that created so much more of a sensory image for someone than saying, you know, “bright raspberries.”

I’ll leave you with this little guy- lobster with orange-caper aioli prepared by Chef John Ash. Next post, I’ll talk about the food and wine pairing writing exercise centered around this dish and share what I wrote in class (but was way too intimidated to read aloud.)

Charming towns. Idyllic, even. Signs for Zinfandel Lane and Vintage Road. Perfectly manicured lawns, landscapes and cookie cutter shops on main streets. Palatial tasting rooms and large iron-gated wineries complete with fountains. Mondavi, Cakebread, Stag’s Leap, Opus 1, Krug, Terlato. Success, money and luxury seem to be the words screaming from the sides of Highway 29. Not like the type of wine country I am used to. But as I continue on past Napa and Yountville towards St Helena and Calistoga, the beauty of the land is shouting as well. The vineyards are almost too perfect. Even in winter.

Endless patches of wild mustard blossoms fill in the gaps between the bare vines- a bumble bee flitting by alongside my car. The land seemed to echo my notions of Napa and its wine. A little too manicured and softened; a missing puzzle piece of substance and soul. But, what did I really know? I haven’t had the opportunity to drink much of Napa’s finest. This week, however, would change all of that…

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I began to write this in response to Day 1 of the Wine Writer Symposium. Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun, was our keynote speaker. She is a charming and eloquent Georgia lady with an intense love of Italy. A fellow Southerner with inexplicable ties to Italia. She spoke to us on that day about writing with a sense of place, something she does so terribly well in her novels. I thought I would begin my series of posts from this fabulous week with that in mind.

Coming up: Tasting Notes 101 with Eric Asimov of the NY Times, Crash Course in Wine Faults (and I thought the cows on I-5 were bad), a trip to the Culinary Institute of America and the chardonnay/cabernet sauvignon vertical blind tasting of Premier Napa.

This is how it goes down. All of us bloggers will be boarding flights from cities all over the country. On March 7 we will descend upon Malpensa airport in Milan with our laptops, empty bellies yearning for Piedmont’s finest grub and mouths ready for massive amounts of Barbera in them. We will spend 4 days tasting Asti, Alba and Monferrato’s finest and blogging like crazy. In the words of Mr. Parzen, it is sure to be a “blogilicious” event. Check out the Barbera Meeting’s official blog where we’ll be posting our thoughts and observations from the tasting and all the other rad dinners and winemaker visits we will be enjoying (the enjoyment factor of this trip is kind of getting out of control.)

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Private residence, Civita di Bagnoregio

Uva Fragola= Strawberry Grape. A wild Italian grape that mysteriously tastes like fresh strawberry. I need these in my life. Why do they not grow in America?

Limoncello. In the words of the wise Clune McClune, “It’s like a musical instrument, but you can drink it.” Wise, indeed. It is thick and lemony and sweet. I like it chilled over ice. Just delicious.

Moscato grapes dried on the vine for sweet moscato passito wine. Peach-candied burnt orange-tangerine raisin candy. I could have spent the whole day in the vineyard with a lawn chair, a book and my arm within reach of a cluster.

In a small village an hour south of Rome, I was handed these by someone’s mother. They were the best macaroons I’ve ever had. And I’ve had plenty. I am a veritable macaroon freak. Chewy, dense and lightly crunchy from the granules of sugar and toasted coconut.

While in Italy, I challenged myself to come up with the best gelato flavor combinations. I know, tough challenge. In Orvieto, I had this:  yogurt frutti di bosco (wild berries) and bacio (hazelnut and chocolate). Like the best raspberry filled truffle ever. And it came in a cup with a parrot on it.

This was a truly awesome day. I hung out with one of the finest winemakers and master of Sagrantino- Giampero Bea. This was the drying room for the sagrantino grapes, which create one of the best dessert wines I’ve ever had: his Montefalco Sagrantino Passito.

Emozioni Lato R. Emotions Side R. R as in Rosso. And Really deliriously good. Leone Conti is not only one of my more favorite people in the great country of Italy, but a fantastic winemaker in Emilia Romagna making crazy aromatic wine from practically unknown grapes like centesimino. This dessert wine was a lavender, rose and pomegranate explosion.

In Friuli, there is a woman named Elena Parovel. She is a very smart woman. She not only made a beautiful wine, but created a cookie to be eaten with it. Elena, I bow down to you and your genius.

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I hope this walk down dolce memory lane:

1. Sweetened your day.

2. Made your mouth water. I like having that kind of  control.

xoxo