Temper and Timber in Asti?

originally posted by MarkS:
originally posted by Cristian Dezso:
OK, OK, were there any nice ones? I'd be curious to hear about those as well.
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Yes. Conterno's Cascina Francia can't be all toast, to make a Thorpun.
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Which is, in fact, the only one I am buying, aside from an occasional Mascarello or Vajra, and I will check on Guido Porro soon. But I have a feeling that Cappellano or Vietti (some) or Brovia cannot be bad either.
 
I've been thoroughly enjoying the Barbera 'love fest' on the blog and via twitter lately and on my way home tonight figured I'd check to see what options I had available here. As I'm looking through what is essentially the ghetto of the Italian wine section of Binny's, I see the usual suspects: Chiarlo (nope), Vietti (not tonight), Giacosa (what, am I made of money?)... After thinking for a sec that I'm just not going to join in on the Barbera hit parade, I spy a label that looks familiar. I remember seeing it in one of Cory's posts. Shit, was he saying it was good? Or a plodding, oaky, 'serious' Barbera? Well, for $12 and thinking he wouldn't put a full pic of some shitastic wine up, I went for it.

It definitely is not one of the over-oaked Barberas. It's the 2008 Suri from Villa Giada and it's damn tasty. Really lively and quite acidic, yet also bursting with fresh, juicy dark redness. There was a not-altogether-too-unpleasant bitterness at first, but that has vanished as it's opened up some more. I can see how it was a hit with all the bloggerati there. I can only imagine how well it would go with some Piemontese food.

So, anyway, if it weren't for the fact that Cory had posted a picture of the label, I would probably never had picked this up. Thanks.

Here are the blog entries about this wine (in case you too want to check out the label):

Jaynes Gastro

Saignee
 
SFJoe: it was actually a spectacularly clean wine, though it had that violet tinge and the spiky acidity common to the genre, as we've discussed in other threads.

Marc D: it's unlikely that Luca and I would be speaking were he here, and I don't know if he was.

Bill L.: yes. I doubt we'll be invited back next week, but my sense -- difficult to gauge since I don't speak Italian that well -- is that they're conflicted about our role. We garnered them a lot of press. Not all of it was good. The above-linked blog, certainly, is not a giant kiss on the cheeks (at either end), and we haven't even really gotten into the meat of the notes and the meta-commentary. I think that we were a net positive for the modern-media credibility of the event, but I don't know how much that's appreciated or even understood here in Italy.

Oliver: we did very much enjoy one of your producers, which I won't comment on here as they deserve more than a line or two. There may be a lot of good barbera being produced, but we didn't taste much of it. Certainly many of the big-name producers who are not famous for their barbera were not in attendance, as is typical for these sorts of events. Some "names" were certainly there, though: Chiarlo, Vietti, Oddero, Braida, and others. And no one asked, at least in English or any of the translated Italian segments, about de-acidification. Maybe I should have.

Cristian: yes, but I think they deserve more than just list-style mention, so I'm going to hold off for now. Hopefully in the next week or so.

Lars: you have single-handedly remade our reputation, as I believe this is the first and only sale directly attributable to one of the Barbera 7, as we've been labeled. So, thank you.

...and as Cory says: we tasted at Gaja today. And the Produttori. Heck of a contrast. And we apparently pissed off the Great and Good of barbera by doing the former. I hate wine politics, but we seem to be embroiled in them.

In much more important news, I believe we've had a chinato that Levi hasn't. More on that later, too.
 
Thor, I get the impression that there are no mainstream wine critics at this event...is that correct? Given the seeming bent of the majority of winemakers and wines being reported on, one is led to think (on the surface, at least) that the producers are crafting their wines for positive reviews from that species of writer...and so A) I am curious why this group of producers invited you guys (for street cred?) and B) equally curious to see what the mainstream writers, whose tastes presumably helped shape the wines you are seeing so much of there, think about the same wines. (Of course, when I say "you guys" I really only know you and Cory and Do Bianchi's tastes, and those only to a certain extent at that...I have no idea what the leanings are of anyone else in your group...so take my musings with grains of salt, slivers of timber, reductions of acid, etc.)

Just seems like a "well, what did they expect?" kind of situation...I mean if any of them took time to consider the writings of who they were inviting. Then again, I don't know the back story of how you all got there in the first place, so again, refer to the grains of salt, etc. above...and pardon my ignorance if I missed some glaringly obvious point along the way.

PS - Very much look forward to hearing about the Gaja and Produttori study in contrasts.
 
I get the impression that there are no mainstream wine critics at this event...is that correct?
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There are, though not a great number from the U.S. International critics were the major source of the anti-barbera complaints, while Italian critics were its major defenders.

The answers to the question of "why" are too long for this thread, as is the answer to "what did they expect" which can guarantee will have a different answer in a week than it does today, based on our experience thus far. But the very short version is that Do Bianchi invited us based on our palates (which are not uniform, though again there was fair agreement on the good/bad wines) and ability to communicate interesting reactions. The experiment was also a proof of concept, but I have no idea what the future holds. We were, in a way, a micro-sensation in a country that doesn't yet grasp the modern mediasphere in the same way other countries do, and when that novelty wears off we'll see what actually results. My guess is: not much.

Gaja vs. Produttori was indeed interesting.
 
I will add quickly that almost every producer we visited had at least one wine aged in older large format or stainless/concrete that was very good. It's a shame that they aren't proud of these wines, and they didn't submit many for the blind tasting.

The chinato was revelatory. I got the only bottle avaialable.
 
originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
I will add quickly that almost every producer we visited had at least one wine aged in older large format or stainless/concrete that was very good. It's a shame that they aren't proud of these wines, and they didn't submit many for the blind tasting.

The chinato was revelatory. I got the only bottle avaialable.
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I think the pendulum may be swinging a bit too far here. There are scads of producers in the Asti and Monferrato who are very proud of their unoaked cuvees; as I understand it you all tasted at La Casaccia, as I did with a group only a week ago, and they have a Barbera with a bit of oak on it but are pleased as punch with their regular bottling (not to mention their Grignolino). (We also visited Agostino Pavia in Agliano, where the same is true.)

It's clear that the producers who did show at the tasting entirely misjudged the taste of their audience, as has been pointed out, but that doesn't mean the whole area doesn't know what good wine tastes like. In my experience many, perhaps most producers have a 'Gambero Rosso' bottling and it sounds like they chose to show you nothing but those wines. They'll know better next time, I dare say.
 
originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
I will add quickly that almost every producer we visited had at least one wine aged in older large format or stainless/concrete that was very good. It's a shame that they aren't proud of these wines, and they didn't submit many for the blind tasting.

The chinato was revelatory. I got the only bottle avaialable.
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Thor must have lost a step or two.
 
originally posted by Oliver McCrum:
originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
I will add quickly that almost every producer we visited had at least one wine aged in older large format or stainless/concrete that was very good. It's a shame that they aren't proud of these wines, and they didn't submit many for the blind tasting.

The chinato was revelatory. I got the only bottle avaialable.
Click to expand...

I think the pendulum may be swinging a bit too far here. There are scads of producers in the Asti and Monferrato who are very proud of their unoaked cuvees; as I understand it you all tasted at La Casaccia, as I did with a group only a week ago, and they have a Barbera with a bit of oak on it but are pleased as punch with their regular bottling (not to mention their Grignolino). (We also visited Agostino Pavia in Agliano, where the same is true.)

It's clear that the producers who did show at the tasting entirely misjudged the taste of their audience, as has been pointed out, but that doesn't mean the whole area doesn't know what good wine tastes like. In my experience many, perhaps most producers have a 'Gambero Rosso' bottling and it sounds like they chose to show you nothing but those wines. They'll know better next time, I dare say.
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Oliver, I wasn't suggesting that they aren't personally proud of these wines, but there were very few that showed outwardly that these are "important" (to use a term that has been a topic of much debate here, along with German film actor's names) wines to them. It was interesting that the winemaker who showed the Suri took the bottle in secretly and a few producers weren't happy with him doing this. When a producer gets in trouble for showing off a wine that others don't deem worthy, I don't think I'm wrong in saying that there is a problem.
 
Cory,

In my experience the word 'importante' is used by Italian winemakers the way we would use 'serious,' ie a producer might be very pleased with his Langhe Nebbiolo but his Barolo is more 'importante.' (In other words it doesn't generally mean 'I like this more than the other one.') I can imagine that a producer in Asti or the Monferrato would think to himself 'how do I get some attention from the Gambero Rosso given that I don't have a 'vino importante' like Barolo or Barbaresco,' and unfortunately the answer was clearly 'oak the shit out of it.' The successes of Braida and Rivetti encouraged Barbera producers to imagine that was the right way to go.

I am glad you all gave them an earful. But there are lots of delicious wines being made in the Asti area, more maybe than there were a few years ago (cleaner winemaking, for one thing), and I don't want that to get lost, even if the producers blew their PR opportunity. My Asti producer makes three single vineyard wines, one aged in stainless steel, one aged half in puncheons and half in Stockinger botti, and one in barriques; I just avoid the latter. The first two are deelicious.

I am dying to know what the producers would have said if the word 'de-acidification' had been used...
 
originally posted by Oliver McCrum:
half in Stockinger botti
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I have no experience with Stockinger and Barbera, but Stockinger and varietals common in the South of France, e.g., Mourvdre, Carignane, Syrah, and Grenache, when used in moderation, is a transformative experience.
 
Oliver, we were shown a fair range of wines given that we tasted something close to 300 barberas alone, but it was clear from the "question time" with producers, both in group format and at lunch/dinner/producer visits, that many of them are not proud of the INOX/botte versions like they are the internationalized monstrosities. I'd take your point about the Italian use of "important" except that it was almost always bracketed by an explanation of how adding cabernet and/or merlot almost always helped them achieve this result as well. I can't really go into this in detail as I'm working up a rather long piece on it now...or rather will be once I'm done bailing out my basement (only three inches to go!)...but it's an argument that deserves expansion at length, and I would indeed like to hear from producers and importers who've had time to think about their answers, rather than just shout at Belgian & American writers and importers that they have no idea what they're talking about.

It's not that there were no exceptions, and I agree that there was not a good match between wines and audience, but the Italian journalists seemed pleased as punch (which a lot of the wines tasted like, by the way), and rather angrily defended the current state of things. It was the durn furriners what caused the ruckus.
 
Thor,

Hope your boxes of wine didn't get soaked.

I may have been reflexively protective of the honor of the fair maiden Barbera. After all, you bloggers have just tasted way more Barbera than I do normally, having made my selections some years ago. I should just say that it sounds like Barbera is not recovering from the plague of crappy International winemaking as quickly as some other appellations, and that's sad. Maybe she is in fact a slut, in other words.

It is a strange artifact of the way the press has rewarded certain wine styles in Italy that many producers I've talked to have wines they make that are intended to get points and that they don't like much. That's bad enough, but the producers you are referring to seem to actually like those wines, which is really a problem.
 
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