At the end of the month Signor Claudio Rosso bows out after three years as the (Honorary) President of the Langhe and Roero Consorzio, representing most – but not all – of the hundreds of (Nebbiolo, Barbera, Dolcetto, Arneis, Moscato) producers in the region. Last week I caught up with him at his family’s Cantina Gigi Rosso, where he has been the enologo along with his father since the ‘80s, and had a chat about his work with the Consorzio.

(more…)

It had in many ways been a decade in the making: the culmination of years of monitoring the Italian fine wine scene; of passing on the increasingly good news (and fine wines) to customers; during which period our sales of Italian wine had risen nearly fourfold while the number of product lines doubled and some. And now here they all were, in London, for the very first time in a few cases, twenty of Berrys’ finest Italian producers, keen to get on with it and show the lucky few what they were made of…

(more…)

It all goes back to a tasting sometime last year here in the Langhe of course, when I sniffed, slurped and spat my way through three score (and ten?) Barbareschi born of the promising 2006 vintage. I recall being held up by a flight of chewy ‘wonders’ (oh yes let’s all admire the cooper rather than the grape) before alighting upon this new name to me: Cascina delle Rose, with its refreshingly open, ethereal wines and friendly sincerity of young winemaker Davide Sobrine. So in spite of all that had been sampled that day, Cascina delle Rose’s fragrance suffused my subconscious, the trace of something special, refusing to let go ‘till I’d paid a visit to the property.

 

(more…)

While there’s much back-slapping over the quality of the 2009 harvest across Europe, here similar success has only heaped further pressure on the cellars of the Langhe, many fit to bursting after a dazzling run of ‘five-star’ vintages, from 1995 to the present day (bar 2002).

(more…)

This morning Serralunga d’Alba awoke to the sad, sad news that Giovanni Rosso, pictured here standing to the left of his wife Ester and son Davide, died last night, following a brave two year fight against cancer. He was such a gentle, honourable man, who gathered me into the midst of his family like one of his own.

That this alien Englishman should be sharing his cantina, the very place in which he was born, was just fine with Giovanni. Aided by his wife Ester, Giovanni built the success of the winery, focusing his energy on the vineyards, and raising the fruit quality to a level that deserved to be bottled under the ‘Giovanni Rosso’ label for the first time in the mid ’90s. And right up until the last moment he was busy preparing orders for export, handing out stockings at the Feast of Epiphany 6th January and even arranging a suitable date for digging a vegetable bed at our new house. Giovanni leaves behind his wife Ester, only son Davide and faithful hound ‘Gaia’.

Yes I’m now back in Serralunga d’Alba after a two month sosta/break in the UK. Dare I say that I have come home? But this time I’ve returned with the family, now resident at La Casa Rossa. Spaghetti Western-esque we’d loaded the wagon (Fiat Doblo) with Christmas pudds, Fortnum’s biscuits and Berrys’ finest malt whisky and headed out across the Rockies/Alps to arrive in time for Capo d’Anno/New Year’s Eve, to a plate-full of cotechino e lenticchi (rich pork sausage and green lentils) at Alessio’s unico family trattoria, ‘Centro Storico’ in Serralunga, accompanied by a silky 1999 Rutherford Cabernet, Frog’s Leap and a sinewy 2001 Nebbiolo from Cascina Ebreo. Sated, it was now time to do battle with our wayward thermostat and dodgy wiring.

(more…)

As I have been based in Italy for the past few months I could well be initiating a new tradition of having Christmas, ‘Natale’, here in Serralunga d’Alba, Piedmont, and I’m banking on the following being served for lunch:

 
Lentils with cotechino (a pork salami) as an antipasti/starter; the dish is thought to bring good luck and it will probably be accompanied by a fresh smooth Verduno Pelaverga from Fratelli Alessandria.

(more…)

How does one gauge the success of an evening’s dinner, at Berrys’ in this case? By the level of decibels or (business) cards swapped at its close?  The number of empty glasses or perhaps more crudely, by the amount of orders taken? At Andre Ostertag’s mercurial tasting recently, for example, I measured it by the time guests remained riveted to their seats, spellbound, long after the final whistle had blown. (more…)

Does Castello di Ama’s owner Lorenza Sebasti Pallanti (left) really model herself on Madame Mentzelopoulos,
Ch. Margaux’s glamorous owner?  Or perhaps she just fashions her wines on the famed Bordeaux First Growth, a taste of whose 1961 back in 1989 changed her appreciation of wine forever…

But surely her family’s fine Castello di Ama property had been on the right course for years, thanks to the combined efforts of winemaker-cum-husband Marco Pallanti (below), in the hot seat since 1982 – a religious man who apparently found a brush with the biodynamic brotherhood a touch too much – and Patrick Leon, one of Bordeaux’s many consultants hired to steer Castello di Ama through its early years until the French accent proved too much for Lorenza?

(more…)

Believe me, I’ve never witnessed a tasting room reduced to such stunned silence. The 30 guests attending André’s two-hour Alsace masterclass in Berrys’ Pickering Cellar on Thursday sat glued to their seats even for an extra ten minutes after the session finished, open-mouthed, as if begging for more. The Alchemist of Alsace, André Ostertag, had indeed worked his magic!

(more…)

Back in early October I was treated to a visit from one of South Africa’s bright young gems, Mullineux Wines, Swartland: Chris, Andrea and their first born John (’JZ’). This is their account.
 
After a somewhat long and difficult trip from Amsterdam (visa issues- it’s not easy travelling as a South African sometimes!), my wife Andrea, son John and I finally found ourselves winding up the road to Serralunga on an appropriately cool and misty evening. We arrived thirsty and excited – perfect for the two-day introductory experience our kind host had arranged for us in Barolo and Barbaresco. I had been to Piedmont once before, years ago while still at University, and most of our European time has been spend in the vineyards of France and Spain, so this was to be a massive learning experience into a terroir and grape variety foreign to the three of us.

(more…)

So what began with a farce: ‘Don Pasquale’ at Turin’s La Regio…culminated, tragically so with a mesmerizing performance of ‘La Traviata’ on late Sunday afternoon.
 
And no, the interim wasn’t all ice-cream & chocolates but a privileged insight into another world; a world free of traffic lights, bungalows and political correctness but full of charm, colour and one or two clowns.
 
I leave the final words to Davide Rosso in his Cerretta vineyard at the time of the 2009 Nebbiolo harvest (see video), and to Alessandro Monchiero of Bra’s Antica Caffe Boglione (www.caffeboglione.it), whose words underpin a ‘must visit’ eatery with a ‘fast’ friendly service, great ingredients (be they food, wine or beer) and a ’slow food’ approach to life…

(more…)

In my penultimate report on the successful 2009 Barolo and Barbaresco harvest I interview Giuseppe and his mother Maria Teresa Mascarello in their Santo Stefano di Perno vineyard, Monforte.

It speaks volumes that this iron-rich, sandy calcareous site should picked last among their formidable stable of Barolo vineyards; later even than Monprivato and Ca d’Morissio. But as Maria Teresa explains in this clip, they wanted to achieve ultimate ripeness, so delaying the harvest by a week. And what a result! The bunches showing great health, ripeness & a most encouraging pink translucence; not a rotten apple among them (?)

But then so you might hope from a 60/80 year-old vineyard. Evviva!  As they say.

Week 17 (or so!) or wine adventures in Piedmont

This is it;  the final week of the 2009 Nebbiolo/Barolo harvest.  Az. Agr. Giovanni Rosso kick off with an early morning dash to La Serra, their east south east facing vineyard high up on the Serralunga calcareous ridge.

In the first video I catch up with Ester Rosso, Davide’s fine mamma, as she corals their team of pickers to pick La Serra swiftly and accurately; a vineyard appropriately drenched in the golden glow of early morning sunshine:

(more…)

We’re into the final week of the 2009 Langhe harvest, with a full two weeks separating the Barbaresco and Barolo (reflecting the difference in style).   As you can see from my chat with Luca Sandrone, of Barolo producer Luciano Sandrone, 2009 has delivered some immaculate fruit and abundantly so too.

 
While Barolo enjoyed a textbook season (deep winter snow, a good soaking during the spring, perfect flowering, constant summer heat and a cooler final month), Barbaresco and the Roero suffered a minor hailstorm on the 19th June, early enough for the fruit to shrivel dry and fall off during the summer; so nothing major.
 
The Nebbiolo planted around the august Barolo village of Serralunga d’Alba is routinely the last to be picked, boasting the longest hang time due to the poorest, coldest soils of all the Langhe, and consequently the most structured of all Baroli. Davide Rosso of Giovanni Rosso is making plans to move fast now (he’s a rally car racing fanatic didn’t you know), so I’ll be straining to keep up…’

Just in case you’re suffering from ‘harvest hangover’ (sorry, too much vineyard footage) and if you’re wondering what the gentle folk of Alba get up to on a Saturday afternoon, in the absence of football, eastenders or the Gold Cup….here’s three minutes of thrilling action:

(more…)

Schoolboy trivia perhaps that Nebbiolo the grape (Nebuẽ in Piemontese) takes its name from ‘Nebia’ the fog that cloaks the slopes at this time of year. Less observed or well-known is that, according to Teobaldo Rivella of Barbaresco, the fog has become scarce since the early ’90; coincidently tying in with the run of great Piemontese and northern Italian vintages. For in the ‘good ol’days’ the harvest would occur deep in October, not at the end of September as this year. The difference being, apparently, that fog has a detrimental effect on young fruit, triggering rot, but serves as a refreshing wrap for mature bunches, such as those served up by warmer, earlier harvests. (more…)

More from the harvest in Italy

I’ve just skipped across the Langhe valley floor from Verduno where the Alessandria family were finishing off their Pelaverga harvest (Berrys’ is taking delivery of the fine ‘08 now).  The fruit’s looking good (I’ve a bunch on my desk as I type): rose tinted skins are firm but not overly, the fleshy pulp fresh and sweet; the pips brown and nutty; and the retrogusto/aftertaste showing a distinct white peppery character that comes out in the wine…Here are the two videos I took during the harvest earlier on today:

 
So the race is on; the tractor traffic’s backing up, as a storm is forecast for Saturday. The Alessandria family though nip ahead in their two year-old Lamborghini tractor complete with paddle gear shift and air-con…which reminds me of the story of how Lamborghini diversified into cars: Signor Lamborghini, minted on farm machinery (tractors), decided to reward himself with a Ferrari but Signor Ferrari (or was he a Count by then?) told him to look elsewhere, ever so politely of course, leading to Sig. Lamborghini building one himself.

Week 15 of wine adventures in Piedmont

It began a couple of weeks ago, with Dolcetto now in and bubbling away in the vats while the cool, grey, rainy weather of the past week has been shoved aside today by blue skies and brilliant sunshine. So the threat to the bulging, compact bunches of Barbera, their thin skins ever ready to split and rot, has been averted for now; their harvest planned for the end of this week. Meanwhile Nebbiolo remains aloof, hanging high and dry thanks to firm fruit and open bunches; the recent showers toning their thick skin and refreshing the bunches as they approach harvest time at the end of Sept/beginning of October.

In this first video I catch up with Maria Teresa Mascarello of Cantina Mascarello Bartolo as she harvests her Dolcetto from the Rue vineyard; also known for the quality of its Nebbiolo fruit:

The second video, shot at the Cantina itself, shows the Dolcetto fruit being passed through a destemmer, via Maria Teresa’s brand new pump, delicately retaining the integrity of the skins, and into the cement vats for fermentation:

Next week: more harvest news!

Week 14 of wine adventures in Piedmont

If Serralunga d’Alba’s Baroli have a Vosne-Romanée character and quality about them, then those of Castiglione Falletto across the valley resemble Chambolle-Musigny, and Monforte d’Alba, Gevrey Chambertin (or, if you’re more at home in the Gironde then substitute Vosne with Pauillac; Chambolle with Margaux and Gevrey with St.Julian!) For compared to the cool white marl soils of Serralunga, imparting formidable structure as well as grace to its wines, Castiglione Falletto’s warmer, softer, sandier, clay rich loam deliver deft sensuality, and Monforte’s ancient sandstone seam deep-seated muscle.

(more…)