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| Barbaresco |
As a lover of Pinot Noir it should come as no surprise that I am also partial to Nebbiolo. It is a much more powerful grape, very tannic in its youth, strident and long-lived. In many ways you would think that this is the exact opposite of wispy old Pinot Noir, but it too creates very pale, translucent and ethereal wines that have that divine lightness of touch. The primary growing area within Italy for Nebbiolo is in the northwest, Piedmont. With this area Barolo and Barbaresco stand out, Gattinara barely gets a mention and I'm not sure Ghemme even makes it outside Italy. Certainly I'd never heard of it until a few years ago when I started making a bit of an effort with Italian wines.
Barolo and Barbaresco are almost next to each other, and the sensible place to start would be Turin. I started from Milan which in fact was the result of a complete cock up on my part. My plan had been to go and photograph Tuscan landscapes for the weekend, but I had a geographic abberation and booked the wrong airport. I did not realise this until much later when I started planning where I would stay and realised Milan was in fact hours away from where I wanted to be. Scratch that then, but what else could I do? Well, Piedmont isn't that far.....
I landed late on a Friday, another after work flight, and made it about half way before stopping in a cheap hotel for the night. A most bizarre place, and seemingly constructed expressely for illicit liasons. The rooms were all 'themed' and not in a good way, the only options on the TV were 18+, and you entered your room unseen from the rear where you parked your car, presumably so you could flee when your actual partner turned up. Luckily I was not staying long but I wondered later how I could have got this so wrong, Booking.com had given no clues. Presumably you needed to be 'in the know'. Anyway I survived it and early next morning went birding.
Yes it was a wine trip, but ultimately everywhere I go involves birds in some way, and seeing as my Italy list was pathetic (and still is) I thought I should at least attempt to improve it. Part of the draw of the dodgy hotel had been that it was close to a large lake that was one of the few eBird pins in the area, and although I slept in a bit as I hadn't gone to bed until 1am I was still there bright and early. The weather was a little grim but I toughed it out, walking the entire perimeter in about an hour and a half. The full list is here and contains absolutely nothing special whatsoever, however almost every single bird was new for Italy so clearly all very exciting nonetheless. Mid morning I hung up my bins and drove the further hour towards the town of Alba where I would be staying for the evening. As I approached the town I diverted off the autostrada and crossed the river. Before me lay Barbaresco.
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| Aldo Vacca, the man behind the success of the modern Produttori |
I don't have a great deal of Italian wine, but most of what I do have squirreled away is from this region. There's a bit of Sangiovese from Tuscany, a bit of wine from Puglia and Sicily, but by far the majority is from Piedmont and most of it is Nebbiolo. From Barbaresco I have around seven cases, not a huge amount. Most of this is from the well-regarded local cooperative, the Produttori del Barbaresco, who work with numerous growers to produce regular Barbaresco as well as nine single vineyard wines - known in Italy as MGAs (Menzione Geografica Aggiuntiva). Barbaresco is both an appellation and a village (alongside Neive and Treiso) and it was here I went first. It must get very busy in the summer as there is a one-way system around the hilltop, but at this time of year it was completely dead and I could go wherever I wanted. The Produttori were open though, and so I wandered in for a small tasting and to learn a bit more about them. As it was low season only the front of house was open, no chance for a tour or a look behind the scenes, but it was great to be able to chat to the friendly employee about the wine, the vintages on the counter, the philosophy behind the wine, and the rules that the growers had to abide by. Fascinating stuff, but still behind the wheel at this point I couldn't really get into it!
Outside the village I popped my head in at Roagna and La Ca' Nova, the other producers I have a few bottles of, but they both seemed closed. Had I been in France I might have rung the doorbells, a conversation in French more likely to be well received on a Saturday than in English, but alas my Italian is non-existent and so I left them to their weekend and drove into Alba. Appropriately enough I was staying above a wine shop, and once I had dumped the car I went exploring on foot. Not too many of the producers have a presence in the town of Alba, and the obvious one that did, Pio Cesare, had closed about an hour before I got there. Such is life. I did the next most sensible thing and went and had a nice lunch with a glass or two of wine at the Osteria dell'Arco.
I spent the afternoon browsing wine shops and buying small amounts of goodies to take back home, including the local pasta, Tajarin, which I had enjoyed at lunch with ragu. For the wine this was window-shopping only for the time being, I wanted to try a few more producers before filling up precious luggage space. This was achieved by heading to a wine bar early evening and trying a few things by the glass. De Gustibus I think it was called, and it was here that I discovered a producer hitherto unknown to me called Sottimano. It was just their basic Langhe Nebbiolo, declassified Barbaresco, wine from perhaps younger vines and that is not required to be aged for as long before being bottled. In any wine area trying a producer's most basic bottling is always a good place to start, and it's as true in Piedmont as it is Burgundy. And this Sottimano 2021 Langhe was simply sensational, the best Langhe I'd ever had. This would be top of the list on tomorrow's wine-buying expedition. Alongside this I had an Oddero Langhe from the same year, which whilst also top notch wasn't in the same league.
In need of more sustenance I popped into the Prosciutteria Albese for a snack and another glass of wine, this time a local Barbera. In contrast to the pair of Langhe this was inpenetrable, really heavy going and not a good proposition at this time. Best stick with Nebbiolo is my advice. The small plate of ham I had was fantastic though - if I lived in Italy I would be even fatter than I am already.
I had another wander around town to get some air and think about where I might find an evening meal. The place I had my eye on was rammed, with families coming in all the time, but the totally unstressed owner took pity on me and squeezed me in on one side of a table. Perfect. I've had this happen before in Lyon and other places, and provided both you and the other diners are chilled about it, the focus being the food rather than the comfort, then all will be fine. The atmosphere in the Osteria dei Sognatori was off the charts fantastic, organised chaos, raucous chatter, huge extended family groups, and it felt more like being at somebody's house than being at a restaurant and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants both good food and a fantastic experience in Alba. They don't even have menus, just a few bits of hand-written sheets of A4 that are passed around. I had a small portion of Tajarin and ragu just to check that it was as good as I expected it to be, which it was, and then something based on pork that was also fabulous but that I was unable to get through. To accompy this a half bottle of Rocche Costamagna Barolo from the Rocche dell'Annunziata MGA. Although it was the latest vintage but one it was fabulously approachable already. Yum! I fairly rolled back to my hotel.
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| Osteria dei Sognatori |
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