Holidays in the Italian Alps: Nebbiolo by Any Other Name

Class Transcript:

Welcome, welcome one and all. Happy Sunday, happy holidays to you! Uh, we are thrilled that you were able to take a break from uh your holiday errands, uh, however frenetic uh they may be at the moment, and uh join us for our 58th edition, 58th edition of Talica Wine School. Um, at this time in the guise of Revelers Hour, uh, monthly wine club, and this month, really excited um to have uh one of my favorite regions represented, and uh, this is the Alto Piedmont. So, Alto Piedmont, alto means high, Piedmont itself refers to the foot of the mountains, and you are in uh northern Italy. And I thought it fitting for the holidays that we take a trip.

to uh land a beautiful holiday markets um they actually get a winter there um or at least for the time being there uh they do um although it's a little colder on washington dc than it has been lately uh this is nebbiolo country but uh it's nebbiolo um in kind of a different guise than i think most um international consumers are familiar with uh uh it is nebbiolo in uh it's pretty high toned lacy delicate aromatic guys and uh certainly one of my favorite guises um for uh this particular grape and any wine uh for that matter uh from uh this idyllic region uh we went kind of a different route for the sake of this lesson and did uh three Separate wine duos and uh these are all predominantly Nebbiolo uh wines.

Some of the most popular wines in the world are 100% Nebbiolo; some of them are blends and uh we'll showcase uh both styles here uh this afternoon and um the two packs are as follows: We're going to start with uh these are kind of like the everyday um northern Italian bistro wines to begin things. These are kind of regionally classified wines and um they are uh lovely uh and you know really uh beautiful exemplars of uh what um high altitude what alpine Nebbiolo um from this particular place uh has to offer, but then we're going to move into kind of more serious Um, iterations uh from individual villages, uh, that being and individual designations of origin being Gattinara, um, and Farra Gattinara in particular, um, is uh one of the most important sources historically for Nebbiolo and predates Barolo, um, as kind of the Piedmont's show horse and uh star player, uh, it just kind of fell on hard times in the 20th century, late 20th century, in particular, and then uh we're going to make a trip to Lombardi thereafter for Nebbiolo by different names so um this is kind of the rose by any other name featurette, um, we'll explore uh the grape that most know of as Nebbiolo uh in different guises. And, uh, the wine that most people imagine as you know, high acid tannic to the extreme, almost punishingly so, in a much more kind of pretty, uh, delicate envelope, um, and certainly one worth celebrating.

We're going to kick it off as we always do, uh, with a bit of verse, and, uh, the thing to do would have been, uh, to celebrate the work of a Piedmont Tacy poet, uh, but I couldn't resist celebrating, uh, the work of, uh, an American poet, um, who passed away, uh, this week, um, and that would be, uh, bell hooks, um, and this is from her, uh, Appalachian elegy, uh, which is a collection of poems and tour de force from, uh, her home state of Kentucky, uh, Bell Hooks itself. Um, was a gnome de plume, uh Bell Hooks, and she was born Gloria Jean Watkins, and uh, she liked the sound of Bell Hooks. Um, again, from Appalachian algae, no crops grow when dense clay dirt packed solid, defies all man-made intent to destroy; let a blessing come here, let earth heal and rejoice.

She has her mother of grace and constancy, wild roses bloom, scatter these hills with beauty that does not linger on the earth, offering still the promise of healing and return. Um, I like that moment of redemption in the uh, you know, that final uh, couple lines of the poem, uh, for the sake of that promise of healing and return, and we're dealing With the grape here that famously has an evocative sense of terroir and roses, which seems like a contradiction of terms starring roses, but you know somehow bears out um, for the sake of uh these wines. Now I'm going to pull up a map uh, first and foremost uh, much to Janice's chagrin,

because wine is a map uh, at the end of the day uh, wine at its best uh expresses a sense of place and is transported uh and evocative uh for uh, the sake of re-entering lockdown and traveling uh vicariously um, as opposed to actually jumping on a plane and you know I think these wines communicate something in the freshness of a sub-alpine region. But equally, you know something of the woodsiness of, uh, you know these mountains, uh, as well and you know they're high-toned and extremely sophisticated but they are soulful in the most Italian way. Um, now this is Pimonte, uh, Pimonte the Italian name, uh, comes from the etymology foot of the mountains; the mountains here are Europe's highest, uh, they are the Alps to our north, uh, the Alps do a lot of things, uh, particularly for uh these designations of origin, uh, that are um just, 

at the foot of them, so we are literally at the foot of the mountains for the case of the Alto. Pimonte Alto just means high Piedmont, now we're gonna zoom in um on the lower reaches because this is you know really what the Piedmont as most consumers know it, um and that's the kind of bottom half of this map here, um and uh it uh encompasses uh the Barolo zone uh in and around Alba, uh that's the Barbaresco zone uh further to the north and uh those are wines that are derived uh both of them uh from Nebbiolo again Barolo, uh this kind of uh darker uh circle um uh you know a bit of a a rectangle and profile and then uh Barbaresco more of a saddle, um Barolo is uh heavily a limestone uh based for the sake of its soils uh it is a warmer corner.

Of Piedmont as is Barbaresco, uh, than the regions, uh, to the north, uh, but Nebbiolo is king there. Nebbiolo, uh, the first who's written mention of it, uh, is uh from 1266, uh, some sources say 1268, but um, our uh, one of our wine school heroes, Chances Robinson, uncovered a document two years older, uh, than the original 1268, uh, mentioned and she's very proud of her 1266, uh, mention as Nebbiol, um, and uh, Nebbiol, uh, drives its name, um, or is thought to derive its name from a couple possibilities, indisputably, um, we are dealing with uh, the Italian root word for fog, um, now, uh, that could refer for the sake of a very late ripening grape, um, to uh, fog in the Vineyard, so Nebbiolo is a famously early budding and late ripening uh grape, um, but you know that makes it exceedingly uh finicky uh to work with in the vineyard, um, because it's susceptible uh to uh late frosts um, you know.

But it's equally uh difficult to ripen and uh it ripens well into November even in uh warmer uh kind of corners of the world for Nebbiolo uh like Barolo um, and so it's thought that the the name of the grape could refer to um the fogs um that are lingering uh in the vineyards uh when the grape itself is plucked from the vine. But uh honestly a more likely uh explanation uh for uh this Nebbiolo this fog um, uh, to do with The grapes, uh, has to do with the grapes themselves, so, um, this is what Nebbiolo looks like when fully ripe and you can see there's this, um, you know kind of a downy bloom on the skins of the grapes, so the grapes themselves, um, are clouded, uh, it's equally likely, uh, the skins of the grapes are clouded, um, as it is that the vineyards themselves are clouded, so, um, that is our fog, uh, first um documented in 1266.

uh now um it's thought that the grape originated uh in and around the long day region which is conferences barolo and barbaresco um and of course the merchants of barolo and barbaresco are hugely proud of that and they want to perpetuate that notion uh there is a counter claim though uh for the sake of the lombards uh well to the north um that there's early documented evidence of uh there what they call chiavenesca um uh just as early as uh the foggy grape uh to the south so uh they're still giving that out to this day uh needless to say it's a sufficiently old varietal uh that its parents are lost to history and that it goes by many different names so we have chiavenesca and lombardi we'll get to that uh for the sake of our last two wines um in the alto piedmont we call it spanna um and that's the corouts uh short each uh siu inspirational mouth name and that um makes instance by way of showing the tomb that cincinnati is the archлаuia of the spellhma чемperani which is uh the nakaa in the greek so tianeti means the storm hasn'tűle fairness or parrot um but it also corn gold um the uh sig diu point it's the only really beautiful uh dla izan used in the Forgetta here1008 um but the unequal negativ真Theря cincinnati the queen of the cave you probably saw the letter romard сожалению or also ferocia and other give us something you love um here on the front of that temple thing so they call it your They shield the region from the coolest temperatures, So it is significantly cooler here than it is throughout the rest of Piedmont.

It is sufficiently warm to fully ripen, this late ripening grape in Nebbiolo, but it is significantly cooler than it is in the Barbaresco and Barolo zones, and that makes for elegant wines with, you know, kind of lighter tannins. They're a little less punishingly gripping than the Barolas and the Barbarescos to the south. Now, in spite of its historic renown and in spite of its reputation as the king of Northern Italian grapes, only 9% of the vineyards in Piedmont are planted to Nebbiolo because it is so finicky, because it is so difficult to work with. It is cold hardy, but it is very sensitive to extreme heat, and it is so late ripening that it needs privileged sites. To fully develop and make the greatest wines.

By contrast, Barbera, a different grape that Americans don't know as well, is considerably less prestigious, accounts for 30% of vineyards in Piedmont because it's much more easy to cultivate than the star of our show today, Nebbiolo. Now, I wanted to throw out some, you know, figures about the Alto Piedmont Tasty Zone as we taste through our initial two wines. So, the Alto. The Alto Piedmont Zone is considerably cooler, as I mentioned. The bloom, which is to say, you know, the flowering of the grapes tends to be two to three days later than Barolo and Barbaresco. The embryonic grapes tend to develop a full week later, and then harvest tends to be a week to two weeks later than in Barbaresco and Barolo. Potential alcohol for these wines struggles to reach 13%.

Whereas in Barolo. And Barbaresco, now you are soaring up to 15% in most vintages, and then geologically there's some differences as well, but I don't want to bore you to tears; we're going to taste a couple of our original wines here, and the first we're going to taste is 100% Nebbiolo, and this comes from just outside of Gattinara, and we're going to feature the first of our, you know, kind of Italian vineyard corn for the day. And this is the very vineyard. One of the very vineyards. This wine comes from in Gattinara; it comes from a small family producer, for the sake of pretty much all of these wines we're dealing with families that have made vines for generations upon generations, and have just started to commercially bottle it in the modern era.

Now, this particular offering comes from, you know, some younger vines, receives a relatively short stay on the skins for a fresher brighter easier drinking offering, and it stays in. But you've got a very typical taste. this is from Rningen, we're going to drink some collected substrate from a massive large neutral oak barrels, for two years prior to bottling up again, drinking this one. To kick it off. So again, our friends at facilitating from a friends at months 최고. I really adore the tasting notes from film select they say this one smells like the approaching winter warm spices dried fruits second just smoke like leaves burning in the distance grown in the hills north of in the distance growing in the hills north of Navarra. In northern P months. 

Of biting chill by biting back without taking too much of a bite out of your bank account, good on you. Psalm select for those evocative tasting notes, they're uh really beautiful and um I like uh that for the sake of this offering, you know we're dealing with unadulterated um nebbiolo so it's kind of a snapshot of what nebbiolo has to offer and how nebbiolo is a little different. Um for uh the sake of um you know, the Piedmont closer to the foot of the Alps uh than the Piedmont further to the south than Barolo and Barbaresco. Um as I give this one a sip so I um have you had this particular wine and what do you adore um about uh these offerings if I'm not mistaken we had it on.

Our glue, glue table for a really long time, it's just like this really like light expression, but was a totally pure um expression of Nebbiolo and it did have like a little bit of farmyard on it, but I remember it being quite approachable, yeah, it can. I think you know um, we like to talk about for the sake of Nebbiolo that tar and roses thing um, that phrase gave it gave its title to um, actually a seminal study of Barolo by Michael Gardner and Paul Merritt in 1990, and you know got enshrined in kind of like this broader you know wine industry consciousness. I think, this is a wine that you know, it's not devoid of tar but it definitely leans More into the roses, occasionally you get a barnyardy funk out of it.

Um, I don't know if we've ever featured the Monseco before; uh, for the sake of the the list that we presided over Zo Uh, we have featured the Uvanera um, which is kind of a fun counterpoint uh, for the sake of the hundred percent Nebbiolo. I love the structure of this wine. Um, the soils uh in this zone are very different than the soils uh that you find um in Barbaresco and Barolo which are more heavily clay derived and have quite a bit of calcium in them um, and tend to produce more brawny uh, fuller tannins uh, you can kind of find them in the Barbaresco and Barolo which Are a little bit more tangy in quality of tannins in these wines, and uh this really you know irony bloody good quality as well.

I think you get some of that uh with this particular offering, but you know there's something uh distinctly um you know kind of uh kind of flowery filigree glacey about these wines. I don't even take the texture uh before the sake of the you know aromatic dimensions um of this wine and I just think it's a preposterously good value um uh as well. I should be said that the the soils in this zone um you know you're in you know you're in you know you're in you know you're in a region that is much more mountainous. The soils tend to be poor, they tend to be better draining, you know, so a little less waterlogged. And again, you know that gives you, um, this lightness to the wines, um, but, um, gives you as well some structure in a wine at uh, at lower alcohol, um, I think it's it's showing really beautifully, uh, this particular uh, offering.

Um, any thoughts from the commentary so far? Zo no, but we do have a good question if that um, Tar and Roses um, note is from the grape itself or is that something um, that comes from the soil or a combination of both? Um, I think it's an inherent characteristic of the grape itself, you know, Tar and Roses, you know, it always Sounds like, uh, you know, the counter programming for the sake of, you know, that seminal Piedmont tacy, you know, 90s punk band, but um, I think it's an intrinsic character of Nebbiolo itself, um, i think it emerges more in some subzones of Piedmont with the Nebbiolo varietal than than it does others, but i think it's i think it's always there and you know i love the way in which Nebbiolo um, you know, kind of embraces that contradiction of terms and our old friend um Oz Clark um, kind of speaks to that in in his um write-up on the varietal and um, you know this is uh from Oz Clark's Wine Grapes um, uh, which um, is an amazing reference work, in the Sense that you know it's poetic, it's beautifully written but it's equally, you know, um, extensive and comprehensive, and it's really hard to do both um as an author, I know, you know, there are other tomes that are more exhaustive than this one, but this one, you know, is much more approachable for the sake of the style of the writing; it's got that like pithy English dawn sensibility, but Oz says it sounds like an improbable combination uh tar and roses, uh, but then Nebbiolo is an improbable grape combining as it does high levels of tannins with high acidity and in its best example some of the most complex, exotic scents to be found. On any red wine to Tar and Roses, one might add cherries, damsons, mulberries, leather, herbs both fresh and dried, spice, licorice, and dried fruit. The tannins mature to a powdery softness; the acidity should be ripe, and there should be a sufficient weight of fruit and alcohol to balance the tannin and acidity while the wine ages.

Um, there's often a certain austerity about the wines, although this is less common from, you know, more effective modern um, and you know even in the most traditionalist examples, um, you know, the mature wines should be supple; and there's this big divide in these zones between modern uh and you know kind. Of more traditional, um, uh styles of these wines, um, and that's more significant in the south for the sake of Barolo and Barbaresco, because those are big ones again we talked about those wines at 15, um, you know, 14 alcohol, I mean they can sustain new Oak, um, and they are so fiercely iconic, um, that they need to be tamed and Brick

does that in a way that larger formats of Oak vessels, um, don't accomplish, but to throw new Oak at a wine like this would be a crime, um, you know it would just be you know, way too much, um, you know the wine would lose any semblance of itself and just taste of, uh, new Oak, um, you know, uh, you know, be throwing, you know, a um kind Of a male glove, you know at a wine when a velvet glove was was required and, um, you know so you very rarely see New Oak uh in these in these offerings, um, and you know could be part of why I love the um you know this kind of sub sub region uh within people because everybody's operating in that traditionalist mode, um, which I which I really adore.

Now, I'm just kind of a continuation of our um you know Alto Piedmont AC Vineyard foreign moving on to um uh Frida Ioretti and and so this is the one that we featured um among those glue glue wines um and uh this is a sign post for the sake of the blends uh that are derived from uh this region, arguably. Even more beautiful in its own right, um, than um you know, the Vineyard we saw, uh, for the sake of the Monseco, um, you can see the Alps looming in the background, Monte Rosa is the second-tallest mountain in Italy, um, which looms uh kind of on the right side of the photo, um, over this entire zone, and this is a region based in Gattinara.

We're going to taste their Gattinara mix, which I'm hugely excited about because it's showing preposterously well, um, but this is a blend; it's actually more Vespalina and Crotina than Nebbiolo, and then there's uh Bernarda in the mix, which may or may not be the Bernarda um that um Italians know. Elsewhere in the Piedmont, here it's also known as Uberera um, but they accomplish different things, uh. Vespalina Crotina, uh, they are more deeply colored than Nebbiolo, uh. Nebbiolo produces dense, um, high acid, tannic wines, but ironically, um, its wines, uh, suffer from a lack of color, you know. You kind of get a sense of of that with both of these and particularly Bernarda, but also Vespalina Crotina, um, may have a deeper color than Nebbiolo does, uh.

But they, they flesh out the wine, um, you know, they soften its acidity, uh, they give it a suppleness it often, you know, can lack. And then Vespalina can bring this lovely dried, um, herbal leaf. To the party, um, we have featured a single variety of Vespalina wines at the restaurant here, and they, um, you kind of smoked, you know, um, you know, scorched Earth, um, you know, kind of, um, even um herbs lit on fire or more like charm to them. Uh, that I really adore, but um, you know, I think for the sake of this one, it's always been a really easy drinking peppery uh kind of wine which Zoe spoke to uh earlier. Um, what do you adore about uh this particular bottling so well?

I haven't had it, but I, I definitely did um didn't miss remember it. Um, but what are what are you tasting? I remember that like nice spicy black pepper kick to it, but but it's been A minute, yeah, I think it's a hugely aromatic aromatic one in my book. And and I opened this one a couple days ago actually for uh a table and have been really impressed with how it's evolved, it's actually become you know in its own right more um uh kind of expressive uh in the bottle over time and it's always nice when that um for me it has a lot of that like cracked black peppercorn um which I think is really different than you know black pepper as such.

You know peppercorns are tremendously floral um you know and bugiling for the sake of um their you know aromatic uh dimension, and this has quite a bit of that and then there's something Like, a little bloody about it as well, so you know, it's like that sake up blob um, you know, kind of thing coming before which I, I really adore, and then it has that crust uh Bailey like um, herbs of Provence and maybe like dried flowers and you know, lavender, and I think there is like something really you know, transported um about sticking your nose into this particular line um. The soils in Gatanara are famously um, volcanic uh, they're overloaded with um, porphyry um, which is a a distinctive type of volcanic rock that gives the local soils um, you know, kind of uh, quite a bit of acidity um, and that can, can you know, I think.

More often than not, you know gives the wines um a softer, uh, tonality, um, you know gives them this, you know really, um, you know pervasively, um, you know delicate, um, you know kind of prettiness, uh, that is certainly lacking from, uh, Nebbiolo further to the south which is, um, on you know those limestone soils which are more basic, you know, just, you know, those are those are ones that could be severe, you know, those are, you know, your punk rock lines, those are, you know, deep, you know, um, you know power riffs, power chords all the time, you know, to my mind, you know, these are wines that this is like, you know, acoustic Spanish guitar.

A lot of notes you know uh higher tones you know that like breathy soprano the you know kind of um uh I don't know what's the what's the Mozart uh um the flute operas though um the magic the um um but uh you know it's just like you know high note upon high note strung together um at length um and a little that little bit of that like or less of that kind of like you know pumping booming bass um and you know to my mind something like wildly refreshing uh about that about these uh particular lines for the sake of that because you know by the same token you know uh they're not insubstantial You know, they still register um, you know a little bit of that grip, and, you know again, you know they're, they're a little bit to my mind like the re-slings of red wines because they prove that something you know can be, you know, gorgeous and floral and pretty um, but still powerful um by the same by the same token um, and I think people miss that a lot about, you know, wine, about art um, you know, I think people get locked into, you know, masculine expressions of things as the only ones that are evoking power and, you know, the only ones that you know are capable of longevity, and you know, I think these are the ones that that prove that, prove otherwise. There's someone tasting notes in the comments about autumn leaves, like I'm walking through um, through the forest right now, just like what leaves and then um, kindling fire, very like hiking and camping-centric, which I really enjoy.

Yeah, I think there's that there's that moment every fall you know, every you know, September October when um, you know, you wander outside and somebody's fired up chimney or somebody's fired up a fire, and you know, you get that like dried leaves coupled with you know, colder drier air, coupled with smoke, thing happening, and you know, you have this kind of like sense of the season changing and You know, if you could distill that into wine form, then you know I think it would be Alta Piedmont AC Red and, and who doesn't want to relive that moment? I mean, that's like one of my favorite moments of the year. Um, you know, smelling that and um, you know, these are wines that you know allow me to, kind of, visit that um, without further ado.

Uh, moving on to two fabulous uh 2015s and uh, these are individual Blizzard wines so Vineyard or kind of Village uh, level uh, wine so um, we spoke to uh, the first couple wines being from um, a hundred percent Nebbiolo uh for the sake of the Monsecco and then uh for the sake of Ubarnery um, a blend of Nebbiolo. And, uh, grapes that you know Vespalina Barbera, they really represent a Nebbiolo insurance policy because Nebbiolo is this, you know, sexy but fickle, uh, beast, um, you know, those other varietals, uh, they uh fill in, uh, when, uh, Nebbiolo, um, is, you know, at its pickle worst, um. Now, for the sake of these wines, uh, we're doubling down a little more on our Nebbiolo and, uh, that's because we're in kind of more privileged, uh, sites, um, almost universally in this region, South-facing sites, um, from, uh, the most historic centers of, um, spanna production, and again, uh, this is a Spanna zone, um.

Now we spoke to the fact Nebbiolo is a very ancient grape, um. There are a lot of different clones of Nebbiolo, a lot of different synonyms for Nebbiolo, but they're equally a lot of different clones. Clones are subtypes of individual varietals. Um, the three most important in the Barolo-Barbaresco zone are Lampia Mache, which is thought to be derived from Olympia, and there's a Nebbiolo rosé. Now, typically those are interplanted uh in a vineyard, and it's it's less the case um like in Burgundy sometimes where you know kind of actively going after a particular Pommard clone or what have you. And in this case um, you know, growers typically want a wine that reflects you know this you Know coral emphasis of you know different, um, clones that bring different attributes to the party, uh, now the growers of uh, the Alto Piedmont are um, uh, at you know, go to great lengths to explain that Spanna is a separate and separate clone um, uh, from uh, the ones to the south and um, you know, just anecdotally, you know, it does produce smaller bunches on the vines um, with you know, smaller berries um, and you know, so there could be something to that, and there's more work uh going into that, now the wines we're looking at here come from these kind of individual designations of origin, and these are you know wines that correspond to The most important villages of this zone and they are um first and foremost Gattinara which we'll uh try first now um of these traditional centers of spanna production um Gattinara is uh by by far uh the most historically important uh Gattinara as early as the 12th century um uh was uh being classified uh for the sake of its vineyards so their tax records um that uh show evidence of vineyards um being um you know given uh variable tax rates according to the quality of the grapes they produced um which is kind of like the earliest form of uh vineyard classification in the world so you know centuries before the merchants Of Bordeaux, uh, were at it, um, you know the, uh, taxmen of the Alto Piedmont were classifying these vendors and that Spokes to, um, the, the, you know reverence, um, uh, that the locals had for these wines and, um, it should be said that there's evidence of winemaking here as early as the Roman era, um, our old friend Pliny the writer about wine throughout the continent, uh, documented, uh, these individual offerings; he didn't speak specifically to Gattinara but he talked about wines from this broader, uh, zone. Gattinara was famous, uh, as early as the 18th century though the Brits were a huge fan when they're at worth at French, they looked To wines like Gattinara as a replacement for their Bordeaux, um, and uh, in the 19th century, um, this is still you know a time during which Barolo Barbaresco were at the outside world; Gattinara was uh being consumed by Austro-Hungarian nobles, um, and by local Milanese elite, and by even Thomas Jefferson, um, who was a fan of the local wines. And, uh, there's actually a local producer in Gattinara, um, that is producing a sparkling wine, um, from, uh, you know, the local grapes as a tribute, uh, to, uh, Jefferson's, uh, Gattinara name dropping; and that's significant because he wasn't name dropping, uh, Barolo, Barbaresco at this, at this particular year uh now Gattinara is different um from Barolo Barbaresco for the sake of uh the local soils uh as I said earlier hugely volcanic uh this is uh ever popular geological survey of uh the region you can see the um the river Sessia snaking its way north through the zone you got Gattinara here um now you know uh it should be said for the sake of these zones these are kind of like predominant um rocks not to say that uh there's not a jumble um throughout the zone but uh that pink that you see the top of Gattinara is uh porphyrites and those are the volcanic famously volcanic uh soils uh in the zone and then uh you have glacial terraces To the west and then a little more alluvial soils, um, in Gattinara and in particular, Fara has more alluvial soils and kind of marine deposits, um, uh, once we, uh, join that wine, uh, further uh to the south there, which is kind of the southernmost sub-zone of, uh, this particular larger region. Now, uh, it should be said spoke to the historic prominence of these individual villages, um, and uh, spoke to the fact there's more Nebbiola grown here than almost any other corner of the Piedmont, um, in uh the late 19th century, you know, which begs the question: what happened?

Well, a lot of things happened, but uh, particularly phylloxera, at their height. In the upper Piedmont, they're almost 100,000 acres of vines, but um, that has dwindled um, to these like microscopic um, totals today. Gattinara still has the same uh, but you can see in far there are only 12 acres of vines left um, that is minuscule um, that is ridiculously tiny uh, by modern winemaking terms. You know it's hard to eke out a living with 12 acres uh, under under vine that is wine as passion project. Um, a lot of things happened um, obviously um, the yellow aphid phylloxera came in initially that worked out well for the Alto Piedmontese uh, because the merchants of uh France came their way and looked to uh Gattinara um, as a source.

Of fine wine to rival Burgundy, uh, but finally phylloxera came their way, and then there was a catastrophic frost on the 11th of August, 1905, that devastated the region, and then two world wars, and a textile boom, uh, and it was a lot easier, uh, to work in a local textile factory than it was to cultivate grapes in these, like, um, you know kind of steep vineyards, and uh, all the local sons of the region left, all the, a lot of the vineyards, uh, went back, um, to forest, uh, essentially, um, this is an image of Boca, um, which is another one of those zones, and you can see, um, you know winemaking at its historic height here, um, in the 20th century, and then you Know what it was, what it dwindled to and slowly coming back, um, in the color photograph, um, at the bottom, um, and you know that is to say that you know we are kind of for the sake of reviving uh wines from the zone not doing anything terribly new uh this is very much a back to the future kind of moment uh for these wines, um, we're going to revisit um our friends at a pre-day uh a terrible pronunciation there apologies uh I did not uh you know kind of do my Italian vocal exercises uh prior to launching this class, this is uh just a stunningly delicious wine I hope a lot of you purchased it uh the Barnes are out there uh we accidentally uh gave You apologize, we didn't, uh, do that for everyone's sake because it is, it is just amazing.

Uh, aged for four or three years, larger kind of what the French would call demi-muids, which are 500 um, uh, liter vessels, uh, so relatively neutral oak influence, but a little more oxidized than your average boat team to be like a thousand liters um and gorgeous. Uh, this particular wine you know showing some signs of age, you know, getting a sense of, you know, some browning. This is a map of the vineyards of um, Gattinara uh, this is a single Vineyard uh, a wine uh, it should be said um, it comes from Guardia uh Vineyard um and Guardia uh, you Can see here, uh, somewhere on the Dan map, um, that I'm not really identifying, uh, at the moment but, uh, trust me, uh, Gordy is there, um, I just can't identify, oh, there you go, uh, and that would be, uh, kind of, uh, further south, uh, and to the east, um, and into the Guardia Zone, so, um, you know all of these vineyards, all these sites, the best of them are South-facing because that's the only way that they can essentially, uh, reliably uh ripen fruit, but the local producers are doing a lot, um, to re-establish the village reputation and this map was a big part of that particular project, um, the other wine, uh, that we have is from Bonaparte, that is from Fara, um, microscopic Uh, 12 um acres left there, you can see kind of a relatively flatter zone more alluvial soils uh more breadth a little less structure uh for the sake of this wine um I think from from Farah and uh this is not 100 Nebbiolo uh 70 30 Nebbiolo Vespalina for the sake of this one uh Jancis has good chasing notes on this one uh gorgeous supple ripe cherry fruit with notes of rose hip and minerally salty notes on the finish acceptably easy to approach but this really deserves more bottle age um uh from uh one Jancis Robinson um you know I think it's kind of fun to try these two wines from the same vintage um you know pretty comparable um elevage Um, long elevage in larger um, uh oak vessels um, the far for for my um, you know mind is there's going to be some variation bottle, bottle um shows its age much more than the Gatanara and that speaks to higher acid um in the Gatanara because you are at elevation there and you're getting a bigger diurnal shift so it's getting cooler at night you're hanging on to that acid as these grapes ripen as a um, as opposed to uh this kind of flatter uh exposition uh for the sake of the wines from uh this kind of southern subzone uh within uh the Alto Piedmont and uh I'll pull up that larger map again so you can see that but uh you get a sense of uh Gatanara to the north here and far uh well to uh the south along the river cesia um so any thoughts about these two um uh Zoe's gonna come to the restaurant and pick up uh these leftover bottles and um you know uh enjoy herself some Nebbiolo or spanna at altitude uh throughout the rest of the night but um I think a stunning uh you know pair of Alto Piedmont AC um uh wines at their finest and kind of a fun case study and how these wines age even though they're still young at 2015.

that's a really good segue we have a question about why um the 2015 has this rust or Auburn color looks down on that absolutely it's because Nebbiolo is a grape that utterly lacking in anthocyanins so anthocyanins are the chemical constituents um there are over a dozen of them um that give red wine its color and some red grapes have more than others um you know to not for example famously has like all the anthocyanins and in you know perverse quantities uh grapes like Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo in them uh so they're famously difficult to um uh kind of extract color uh from these grape skins as the wine macerates and then equally as the wines age uh these tannins go from vividly red to brown faster uh because there are fewer of them uh than uh they would um you know if the grape was uh uh you know I talked with them, and essentially an oxidation uh reaction uh for uh the sake of these wines and some grape varietals are more prone to that um than others. And you know, seeing that brown rim I see that brown rim particularly on the Fera is uh indicative of aging in a wine, but it can be equally indicative of wine from a particular grape. So you know, to look at this wine in the class you know, to someone who tastes quite a bit of Nebbiolo or Spana, you know um, merely looking at it uh, uh gives you a sense of the fact that you know, hey you know we're looking at a red grape, you know that's not chock-a-block with anthocyanins and there's So only so many possibilities there, um, you know you could be dealing with a grape like Xenomabro, uh, but you know it'd be rare to blind taste someone on that; you could definitely be dealing with Pinot, um, but uh, that is, you know, kind of a hallmark of uh Nebbiolo with age to it. Um, I have to read, um, I have to read this tasting note: Barton's sultry reclining on a crushed velvet couch, an elusive with anecdotes late into the night while Billie Holiday croons softly in the background; give you ten dollars to guess who, uh, that's definitely Lisa Marie, but uh, um, I love the um, um, I like Billie Holiday, um, because Billie's like a little Husky, um, you know she's got that like gravelly, you know deeper kind of voice and, and you know I, you know there's always that, you know kind of Billie Holiday, uh, Ella Fitzgerald one too, you know they're like the, you know Beyoncé and Rihanna of their own era, um, and Ella is always stating with those, you know higher kind of, sometimes like baby dolls, I mean Ella, Ella can be soulful too, but, you know Billie's that, you know deeper, you know strange fruit kind of like melancholy, um, you know tonality, and, and I, I like that for the sake of the fair, um, from to my mind, I think like the, the first one we taste the oven era, that's that's a little more like you know uh you know I won't scat again I apologize but um you know that's more than like scatting but you know I like that for the older wine that kind of like you know soulful you know like uh Billie Holiday or you know Billie's probably like you know has a cigarette you know while while she's singing um yeah it feels it feels a little bit like brandy and cigars you know in in and of its in and of its own right but uh uh yeah ten points Lisa Marie uh nicely done really beautiful um it was also the bartend was also compared uh to the friend who takes you to that Thai restaurant that you've never tried before Blows your mind, yes, yes, yeah, it's interesting, like um, I think the Farah is kind of in this um, you know moment where it's it's nearing the end of its useful life, um, uh, you know, I think we tried this wine in a couple years, you know, it would be so leathery, so tawny, um, that you know, it would, you know, be kind of devoid of fruit, you know, we're getting into this stewed fruit place with this wine and, you know, like, you know, wandering into uh, an antique store, you know, and you get that musty smell of like well-worn old, like my grandfather had this leather chair that he always did, you know, crossword puzzles in, and this, you know crossword puzzles in and this you know reminds me a bit of that um you know but you know I think this you know shows those tertiary characteristics really beautifully to my mind the really lovely um you know it's letting it go um a little bit not in a bad way you know but it's comfortable with its with itself um I feel you know still you know has you know this this longer uh life in it um and you know i i think it's it's really fun to try them both together because again you know they hail from the same year um uh not you know the same blend as such the um the far does have 30 percent of spleen in it um but um you know it's it's all down to to single site and and again you know has Everything to do with Gatanara is this like really privileged, um, exposition uh within the larger zone, um, and uh that you know, it really rivals, you know, only Barbaresco, Barbaresco, and you know, is this unique, um, kind of, uh, set of growing conditions for Nebbiola that are that are hugely auspicious and you know, prettier, um, they're just you know, more approachable, I think, you know, Barbaresco, Barola, they can be severe, you know, they're just like they're a little like extra, you know, it's just like you know, they're not, they can be just like bracingly, punishingly, like, like tannic and austere, um, unless you Get them, you know, a shit ton of time to just settle into themselves and who has that time or that money, um, uh, and, and I like, I like that you know.

These wines do something else that is, um, you know, a little more maybe, uh, approachable but but equally a little higher toned, um, uh, to my mind and it's not even about approachability it's just about you know this different kind of sophistication, uh, for, for the sake of these wines, just not to say that Barolo and Barbaresco are unsophisticated they're just like they're louder, they're louder and and I think like you know sometimes you know the loudest person, you know, is confused with the You know, most interesting or most intelligent person in the room, but I find more often than not, you know the person that you know is speaking a little less,  but in a a clear voice, um, you know, at a lower decibel, um, you know, typically they have more interesting things to say than you know the the one bloviating, um, at any rate, uh, before we move on to Valtolini's, any further thoughts about these two though, um, a question about Bonarda is this the same Bonarda that we see in South America and could you talk about oh over great, great so uh, this is like crisis of uh names and throughout Italy, so Italy has you know, arguably More native grapes than any country in the world, uh, the Georgians would pillory me for saying that, but the Georgians have a lot of grapes because you know it is the birthplace of you know Vinifera um, but the Italians actually commercially work with their hundreds of varietals in a way that they would never approach um, uh, there are multiple Bernardas um, so um, there is the most famous Bernada in Italy that came to Argentina uh, produces these you know um, full-fruited um, uh kind of spicy wines that soften Malbec uh, and Argentina is essentially you know um, a satellite state of Italy for the sake of the people that Came there, you know, the Porteño dialect in Um, you know, Buenos Aires is, you know, Um, as heavily laden and influenced by Italian as it is Spanish, but a lot of Italian grapes. There's actually quite a bit of Nebbiolo Um, it should be said Uh, in Argentina, but that is a different part, Bernardo than typically shows in Piedmont Uh, the Bernardo that typically shows in Piedmont is actually called Um, Uh, Uva Rara Um, and Um, it is equally known as Bernardo locally, so they're like a case of mistaken identity.

But then just to further complicate things, Bernardo Um, elsewhere in Piedmont, not in the Alto Piedmont because it wouldn't you know reliably ripen as such as much you know uh will show its face so so you do have this like uh mistaken identity uh uh there but a lot of bernardas it is the same bernarda as shows up um in um argentina but it may or may not be the same bernarda that shows up in uh uh this particular one uh for instance um killer question excellent question um without further ado we're moving to lombardy so different different province um so uh you can see this is a map of the big boot um we were in piedmont piedmont is um that northwesterly most zone um or for the directionally challenge uh upper left uh uh not the tiny most that's the val d 'Asta which is Italy's smallest and least populated province, but uh the big one that surrounds it, that's Piedmont.

Uh, that's where we were uh for the sake of these ultimate tasting wines. Uh, we're traveling uh north and east, um, essentially to Switzerland. This is Valdalenà. So, um, was uh presided over by uh Frank's various dukes of Savoy, um, occasionally the Lombards. But there was this really strong influence from these governing um uh regimes to the north, uh, assorted Swiss cantons, that's especially the case um uh for Valdalenà. Valdalenà was uh, um, presided over, was ruled by Swiss cantons from 1512 to 1815. thereafter until italy unified it was essentially part of austria-hungary um you know so uh you know for the sake of um you know valpholina's growing zone it is as much switzerland as it is uh italian um fully 80 of these wines are consumed locally um if we define locals within 100 miles um you've got the alps to the north the alps to the south uh if you're keeping score at home uh the ration helps the north uh the ever popular aribi uh alps to the south that straddles the otta river um the only kind of growing uh uh area is um along the north bank of the otta uh so you can see you're kind of um uh you know kind of coming up from that North Bank, this is you know a zone that's encompassed entirely uh by that North Bank, and uh the the Orange line is just a road, but you're on the North Bank of the Otta river here. For the sake of South-facing slopes in the is the only way these grapes reliably ripen. They call Nebbiolo here Chiavenosca, which, depending on who you ask, either refers to a local village or comes from an Italian phrase or local phrase, Chiavenosca, which means more whiny.

It is equally a separate clone of Nebbiolo, larger, looser bunches to this one, as opposed to the smaller, tighter bunches of Spana. Very different than Piedmont in the sense that Nebbiolo is pretty much the only star of the show here. There are other grapes that are, you know, descendants of Nebbiolo that can be used in the blend, but fully 90% of the region's grapes are essentially Nebbiolo. It's a really interesting region for the sake of its climate, because in spite of being at elevation, and in spite of being kind of at the northerly limit of where these wines, you know, are produced, you know, can be reliably cultivated, summer's very hot. So it's actually as warm as, like, Pantelleria off the coast of Sicily in the summer as it is other parts of northern Italy.

So you'll see capers here, you'll see figs here, which you would never expect this far to the north. And Nebbiolo, we talked about as a finicky, kind of heat-sensitive grape, actually shuts down very often. During July and August, in these vineyards, because it's so hot, it's not the case that you get more and more ripening, the hotter you get. Once you hit the high 90s, both grapes will cease their metabolic activity, you know, they'll cease their respiration, actually close up their pores and hunker down because like, 'fuck', it's hot up in here, you know, you know, this is like too hot for vinifera. So they will shut down. And Nebbiolo does that. And that will actually slow down the ripening, which is, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, not auspicious for the sake of Nebbiolo, because it's such a late ripener.

But it comes back around here, because they have a sufficient ripening window. And these are wines that, you know, show this lovely fruit, but this lovely structure as well. You know, I get a lot of like ripe strawberry with these wines. And, you know, texturally, I think they're a little coarser at times, than some of the Alto Piedmontese offerings. There's a very famous dry grape wine called Sforzato here, that actually earned its DOCG status prior to Amarone, which is Italy's most famous dried grape wines. These particular offerings, not from dried grapes. These are from, you know, just fully ripe grapes, roasted Barbaresco, from entry-level offering for the sake of Barbaresco, I can blend in more of the non-Nebbiolo grapes for the sake of these, but these are, you know, overwhelmingly Chianti-derived wines.

Back to our Italian vineyard corn, this is a wine that is a little bit more of an Apérit. That is a kind of a playful name derived from the third generation grower who founded this estate in 1984. His name was Arturo Pellizzati Perego. And thankfully, he just, you know, stole the first two letters of each of those names. And the estate has gone by Arpepe ever since. They're probably the best known modern producer in this corner of Lombardi. And they, you know, that said, work in very traditional style. This is a wine that's fermented in large format chestnut pots. Chestnut is a local wood that would have been used quite a bit. It tends to be more oxygen transmissive than oak. And this is a 2016.

We also have a 2006 from a different producer, Bălgera, equally kind of traditionally minded Bălgera. But they're using the other prominent old wood, and that would have been Slavonian oak, Slavonian oak from Croatia, not Slovenia, mind you, Slavonian oak. And this is kind of really cool for the sake of the walls. The walls here actually have a name. They're called Moretti. It is so preposterously steep, dear, that the locals call their form of farming, their form of viticulture heroic because of the work entailed in maintaining these vines. It is preposterously steep. If you lose any soil over winter, you have to cart it back up the hill yourself for the sake of these vines. That's got to be, you know, you're kind of lower on the totem pole if that's your particular job in Valtellina.

But equally, they have these vines that are very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very specialized harvesting baskets that they would use to collect the grapes called Portini. This is said wicker basket, bespoke wicker baskets for the sake of our grape collection because it is so preposterously steep there. And, you know, in the modern era, they have actually done quite a bit with, you know, all sorts of kind of, you know, ingenious modern devices. And, you know, they've also used a lot of different materials to, you know, properly kind of bring these grapes down to the winery. So, occasionally you'll see these individual like wired, you know, cranes, you know, so I can wire up your whisker basket or your plastic basket and send it down the hill if you want to.

But there's actually a dearth. The masons that maintain these walls are now in short supply. You know, so if you know any stone masons that are working on these vines, you know, in need of work, uh, send them to Valtellina. Um, and, uh, you know, they should do very well for themselves. Um, all of which to say that, you know, these are special ones. Um, you know, they're not inexpensive, but, you know, relative to, um, you know, their rarity, um, relative to the labor of love that goes into each of them. Um, I think comparatively speaking, they're amazing values. Um, the idea for the sake of this duo is that, you know, we were going to give you a little like, um, a tour de force of, um, you know, Nebbiolo at altitude, Chavanesco, um, uh, through time.

So you get a chance to taste this wine in 2016, and then a different version of it after a decade. And, um, you know, one of life's great joys is, you know, um, you know, experiencing things at different ages, you know, seeing, you know, your children, seeing your nieces and nephews, your cousin, you know, at age six, at age 16, um, and seeing them evolve and wine, um, you know, works the same way. Um, so any thoughts on these two particular offerings, um, for better or worse, um, as they have aged or any thoughts about how they compare, um, to the Piedmont Tasty wines, uh, to the South and West? Um, please pop any and all, um, notes down. Um, the 2006, I've heard it's killer.

Um, I remember having the Bulgaria, um, about this time last year, um, and it was absolutely delicious, but I do recall having that like strawberry, balsamic reduction, um, just so absolutely delicious. I remember having it with like a, a pretty rare, like ribeye night of myself, but, um, could you talk a little bit more about how the barriques, um, that are used in Barolo and how their size, um, influences the wine? And then also what are the sizes of the chestnut barrels that are used in Lombardia? Uh, excellent, excellent question. So, um, uh, the size of a barrel, um, uh, plays, um, you know, different roles, uh, for the sake of wine. And, um, you know, one of those has everything to do with imparting flavor.

Um, so the smaller the barrel, um, the greater the ratio of surface area of wood, uh, uh, to wine. Um, so it means there's more surface area of wood to comparatively small, um, volume of, uh, wine, which, um, means that the flavor of the oak, particularly if it's newer oak, um, is, you know, imparted, uh, more dramatically, um, in, um, you know, the smaller barrels, uh, than it would be in, uh, the larger ones. Um, but there's a, a secondary function, you know, that is particularly, uh, important. And I spoke to the fact that chestnut, uh, for instance, had these like larger pores and was, uh, more oxygen transmissive, , than oak is, uh, but oak, um, or wood, uh, as a natural, uh, material, um, regardless of its size, um, uh, tends to, uh, be in a much more oxidative vessel, um, than, uh, stainless steel or even, uh, cement or, um, you know, amphora, um, which are so hot right now, but it depends, you know, with amphora to some extent on how the, uh, individual amphora are, are fired. Um, but one of the most, uh, kind of important, roles that, uh, smaller oak bariques, um, have to play, um, for the sake of, uh, wines like Barolo, um, that are, um, you know, very, you know, tannic, coarsely tannic, um, in their youth is oxidation.

Um, polymerization of those tannins, uh, tends to give you, um, a softening, um, of, uh, wines, uh, over, over times that, uh, is accomplished much more slowly, um, in, in larger vessels. Um, so I, I think that's the, you know, the most important difference, um, for the sake of, you know, barique, um, on the one hand, um, and, you know, kind of, uh, a larger oak, um, you know, vessel like a boatie, um, on the other. And then you have this, um, kind of local shorthand, uh, for barrels of, of different sizes and different shapes, depending on, um, the region; um, pulling up, uh, uh, an image of kind of like different sizes of barrels. So you can get a bit of a sense of it.

But, ton, um, uh, is more significant as a term for, for Cognac barrels, but, um, in, in, um, uh, for instance, um, uh, Germany, you know, they might say, um, you know, uh, um, well, in Italy, say you know, Germany, you know, they have larger like neutral oak vessels for the reasons you know that could be thousand liters or you know up to um you know two thousand liters, um, uh, uh, for some of those wines, um, uh, and then, uh, the single um, you know, butt or punch in there,  you'll see, um, it could be called like demi-muids uh, in the French tradition, uh, it's weird they don't have a break here but a traditional break is uh, 215-218, uh, liters, and there's a difference, a distinct difference between um, a break, um, uh, which is a typical terminology for a Bordeaux barrel, um, and a traditional Burgundian barrel, um, which are slightly more elongated, but um, that size originally um evolved because it was the size that, uh, an individual producer or individual vineyard worker could easily manipulate themselves, so after about 200 liters of wine, a barrel, it got a lot harder for an individual um to um, roll a barrel around. In the cellar, and uh for the sake of the French Resistance, actually it was kind of a wonderful little bit of um, you know, kind of kismet.

Because uh, a person could fit in a barrel, and uh, the winemakers, a lot of burgundy would like um, break down and reconstruct barrels around uh, various members of the French Resistance to smuggle them in and out of uh, Vichy France um, and uh, the Second World War. But long story short, for the sake of wine, barrique's smaller oak um, is more desirable um, as an aging vessel because it softens the harsh tannins in their youth, whereas you know those um, larger oak vessels, because there is less Oxidation for the sake of a greater volume of wine and a smaller surface area, oxidation proceeds a lot more slowly, and the wines take a lot longer to develop, which is equally why wine in magnum, um, takes, you know, kind of, uh, or traces a slower arc, um, for the sake of its aging, um, than wine in, you know, more traditional 750 milliliter, um, uh, format.

Thanks so much, um, it's I don't know how we've not come to this because you and I have discussed peanut butter cup ratios from all the different types of seasonality for like at least four years at this point, um, and Janice just mentioned that, okay, so when we're talking About um, oh we're talking about the chocolate to peanut butter ratio in regular versus a mini, okay yes exactly, mini is always superior. Um, oh sure, chance of mini superiority, see this is where I disagree wholeheartedly. So, um, I think my mind um uh, the greatest uh version of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is uh the Easter egg. I'm equally convinced that the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is uh the Easter egg.

Um, equally convinced that there's only one mold um and that the um pumpkin and the Christmas tree are just misshapen eggs, and they have some in turn, that's just kind of like you know, poking at them as they come off the conveyor belt because. It's never like the most perfectly formed um you know uh pumpkin or or tree but uh to my mind that is the greatest ratio and it is the greatest ratio uh because it is a uh a more a larger ratio of peanut butter relative to to kind of like chocolate. So for the sake of this dialogue today, Janice would be more analogous to like a more modern Barolo producer, trying to age her peanut butter cups in smaller vessels, where I would be more of a traditionalist for the sake of holding on to those larger vessels for the sake of my peanut butter cups.

And the- Yeah, it's all about the taste then. The edges are the perfect fit. I'm like a California Napa cab, all of the American new oak on the smallest amount of wine when it comes to it. Yeah, no, I hear you. I don't fetishize the little rings on the edge of the cup. I kind of like the smooth, you know, quality of the larger egg, but, you know, teach them. Could you talk a little bit about the new and old school versions of Barolo and then like- the brothers of Barolo, for example? Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of, you know, kind of different, you know, winemaking dimensions that work there. You know, we talked about the use of new oak and that's something, you know, new oak became more popular in the 80s, 90s as a more overt signature on wines to, you know, chase scores internationally.

And to make wines that showed better in their youth. So Nebbiolo is a wine that it's not precocious traditionally. It's kind of slow to evolve. And it is both high acid and high tannin. And, you know, the wines that were the kind of classic wine of Barolo, you know, it may or may not be, may or may not have been made, you know, in the most quality conscious manner in the vineyard. But there was this like ridiculously long maceration of the wine on the skins, you know, often as long as like 60 days to months, you know, to give you a sense, you know, more modern wines, like the Monsecco, this is like a seven to 10 day maceration on the skins.

And at 60 days, you can invite all sorts of microbiological bad actors to hang out on the cap of your ferment. So, you just get more consistency for the sake of wine and you lose a lot of those like brighter, fruitier, better elements, even in a wine like Barolo. And then on top of that, you know, the wine would have been brought up in these like larger oak neutral vats for years on end, traditionally at least like three years. And that was the recipe. And that tended to make a wine that was savory, that didn't have a ton of primary fruit. And that was coarsely tannic and high acid, especially when it was bottled. And, you know, these wines are not precocious, you know, they're not meant to be consumed, you know, right away when they're released.

Unless you have, you know, sufficient cellar space, and unless you're sufficiently patient to wait a couple of decades, you know, you end up with something that, you know, is, is not rewarding, can be punishing, can be severe, that, you know, really needs food to shine. And so, in the 90s, in particular, you saw a wave of producers in Barolo that, you know, were traveling more broadly internationally. We're seeing, you know, different winemaking regimes implemented in, you know, various parts of both the, you know, the European continent and, you know, elsewhere in places like California and South America. And they said, you know, we want to make wines from this grape in a cleaner fashion that are a little more approachable in their use.

So, you know, they dialed back those maceration times and they switched to Barrique, and they switched to newer Barrique. And they liked that signature of new oak on Nebbiolo. And they liked the fact that that new oak tamed some of the course, their tannins in their wines, because the wines oxidized faster and those tannins polymerized faster. You know, what was lost for the sake of a lot of traditionalists, you know, like the Quinternos of the world, or the Bartolo, Moscarellos of the world is that, you know, they feel like Nebbiolo lost some of its identity and they feel like there's this ubiquitousness to wines made in a particular style with that overt, fresh, fruity, shorter maceration time and very pronounced new oak signature.

And, you know, if, you know, our Barolo just tastes like new oak and it ceases to taste like tar and roses, is it still Barolo? Now, there were a lot of good things that came out of this, you know, grappling with modern wine trends, and they were cleaner cellar practices. They were vineyard practices that allowed grapes to ripen more reliably. It's less of an issue now because of global warming, but still, Barolo, you know, so there's a lot of good things. And so, you know, that you know, do we use Barrique, do we use Botti, do we use more o旺ger maceration, do we use traditional or like we use more modern kind of shorter maceration? A lot of those considerations, you know, have started to soften and you'll see producers playing around with both for the sake of different wants.

Now, I think, but seeing these wines, what's kind of fun to my mind is that, you know, you saw a little bit of both. So, for the sake of $26 00 cigars, you know, you need to go by an oak while you're having a big one on the Aca hac? These offerings that, you know, made in a kind of fresher, younger style, shorter macerations, you know, totally stainless for the sake of this one, two years in neutral oak for the sake of this one, you know, but you got a fresher, fruitier style, and then, you know, I think for the sake of the Gattinara, longer maceration, but still showing really beautifully, you know, the Farah, you know, was more lovably old-fashioned, you know, these are, you know, to my mind, kind of, you know, somewhere in between.

Rosa Valtellina's is a shorter maceration for the sake of the Arpepe, but Valguero's wines are always made with a longer maceration, a more traditional style, so, you know, I think there's less this divide, you know, there's this famous story in Barolo of this wine producer that built a wall down the middle of a winery to separate siblings who are on different sides of this ideological debate, like literal wall, you know, things have, you know, kind of softened a bit. And I think both camp, you know, has realized that, you know, the other, you know, has something valuable to offer, and, you know, regardless of whether, you know, you're making wines, you know, in barrique or in bogey with a shorter maceration or longer maceration, I think, you know, people are more concerned with, you know, expressing, you know, the best of a single site, wherever they are, and, you know, making a wine that's, you know, speaks to a sense of place in a, you know, profound and, you know, kind of respectful way.

Is that a good answer, Jane? That's a great answer. Sorry, I was slightly distracted. We had a great chat of talking about all of the desserts of yesteryear that actually would go really well with these wines, too, like the Pecorino cake, remember the Medina? Oh, yeah, yeah, totally. Like my love for it, that Budino, love the chocolate Budino, you know. So, to my mind, Alto Pimentese Red is one of the great, like, hard, salty cheese wines in the world. It's one of the great cheese wines in the world, like, you know, end of story, aside from, like, dessert wine, you know, if you're not going to go sweet, this is the red wine I want to pair with cheese. You know, people want to throw these big reds at cheese, like, I think more often than not, that that falls flat.

You know, the voices are just too loud. I think you want some tannins for the sake of that fat, but these are, like, great stinky cheese wines. These are great, like, Taleggio wines. But equally, they're good, like, Pecorino wines, you know, #PecorinoCake, but, you know, like, really well-aged Parm, well-aged Gouda, you know, like, a hard cheddar, like, cloth-bound cheddar for, you know, all you Midwesterners in the house. Like, I think this would go really beautifully with. It just, it's a wine that wants those things. And, you know, Nebbiola is almost, you know, universally a wine that, you know, you want to eat with, but I think, you know, particularly these Nebbiolas are wines that you want to eat with. I think they're lovely on their own, and I think they can be transcendentally delicious on their own.

But, and they're not so punishingly tannic and acid-driven that you don't want to drink them outside of, you know, food pairing. But they equally go beautifully with food. And I think to miss out on them as a part of that context is, yeah, not criminal, but, you know, it denies the wine its fullest expression. And, you know, it speaks to the sense in which, you know, for most Italians, wine is food. Historically, you know, a lot of these alcoholic beverages were important not only because people needed, you know, you know, a brief respite from, you know, their workaday lives, which were very hard, but equally because they were an important source of calories for people that weren't getting them. You know, so we have more calories than we know what to do with these days.

But I like thinking of wine as food. And, you know, obviously it's intoxicating, but I think if you think of it as food, then, you know, it makes it, it makes it a little, a little healthier in and of its own right, or at least that like helped me justify consumption. Absolutely. I love it. I think that wraps up all of our questions, although I do have a question for you. What's your favorite Christmas cookie? What's my favorite one? Christmas cookie. Ah, fine questions. We actually did this as a, as an icebreaker at, line-up at the restaurant the other day. I was trying to eat the turns of like Christmas cookies. That would work with this particular wine. And should be said, I do like a good, like gingerbread, but I want like the gingerbread that's like offensively ginger.

I want like, you know, like it was like the lemon curd that like, you know, get you like right back here. I want like the gingerbread equivalent of that, for the sake of spicy gingerbread. And I think this would be kind of fun with that. I'm kind of basic for the sake of my cookie love like I like a really good chocolate chipper. come in a lot of different shapes and sizes. I like chewy chocolate chip, but it needs like the salt. Um, I like, I like salt on, on my chocolate chips, but, um, I get down a ton of those. And then, uh, the other sentimental favorite is my mom makes these like, uh, uh, diet, diabetic emergency and peanut butter form, um, uh, things that are called buck.

She calls them Buckeyes. Um, uh, and it speaks to Janice for your sake, my love of the, um, egg as the platonic ideal of the Reese's peanut butter cup of chocolate ratio, uh, because it's like this, like little golf ball size, um, peanut butter thing with a preposterous amount of powdered sugar, like more powdered sugar than anyone should ingest in one sitting. Um, and then, uh, dipped in chocolate, but just so that there's like a, it's like, so it kind of looks like the, you know, um, uh, the dessert equivalent of the Death Star, um, um, uh, and those, those are amazing. And in my youth, um, you know, before my metabolism started to slow down, I could eat like a dozen of those at one sitting.

Uh, but now, but now I get, I have to, I have to limit myself a little more. Um, but, uh, I think, you know, these are wines that, that can go really well. Um, uh, this is like a good Christmas cookie wine, a way that I wouldn't expect. And, you know, I actually like leaning away from a, a lot of dry whites for the sake of this thing. But, you know, for me, something about the savoriness of these coupled with that, like, like tannic dimension on the back end, um, I think could be really fabulous, um, with those offerings. So, um, uh, without further ado, thank you for the question, Zoe. Um, uh, uh, Zoe Nystrom, I love you.

Um, uh, we are so blessed to have you still in our orbit, um, and not deriving any money, um, off of this after all these years. Um, everyone, um, uh, please raise a glass to Penny, uh, who is, uh, Zoe's, um, uh, adorable, occasional wine school classing, uh, crashing companion, uh, for, oh, these many years and a lovable, um, equally friend to, uh, her mom for the bulk of her life. Um, uh, she, uh, has passed on, she was a good girl. Um, and, uh, you know, we wish her, um, you know, all the best, um, with her ancestors and, um, equally want to thank you all, uh, for, for joining us. Uh, I hope you have a fabulous holiday season. I hope you enjoy these wines. I would continue to drink them, um, throughout the holiday season. Um, and, uh, it has been a pleasure as all, uh, to join you alone together. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Cheers.