So as it does every year, excitement in these small towns builds in the last months of Summer as the local grapes lurch towards ripeness, the first of which to hit the local wineries are moscato and dolcetto. It builds in a crescendo as around the third week of October it comes time to gather the grandest of them all, nebbiolo. It is a dangerous time of year for growers in the Langhe as the local climate has a tendency to quickly and drastically turn for the worse making weather in October a key to the vintage.
Among the most eagerly anticipated fruit is that from the greatest vineyards, located around the towns of Barolo and Barbaresco, which are also two of Italy’s finest and most revered appellations. This is the place where the nebbiolo grape can produce truly profound wines of great longevity characterised by chewy, mouthfilling tannins whipped into shape by lively acidity. Perhaps, though, nebbiolo’s most treasured asset is its haunting perfume. Like great pinot noir, there are layers of intriguing fruit flavours ranging from perfumed roses, violets, pot pouri, cherry and spice to freshly laid tar, tea and licorice. The great nebbiolos of North-Western Italy are also wines steeped in history. While the first mention of the ‘Nubiola grapes’ was made in the fourteenth century the Romans were known to tar the inside of barrels of lesser wines in an attempt to give them some of nebbiolo’s highly valued tarry characters.
Generally Barolos are the most deeply flavoured, masculine and long-lived styles of the two top villages with Barbaresco a more feminie and fragrant expression. Within these appellations there are also subregions, each with their own individual characters. In Barolo, La Morra produces plump, fragrant wines while Castiglione Falletto and Monforte d’Alba tend towards being more sturdy and unyielding when young, requiring long aging to come out of their shells. Great Barolo vineyards or Crus sometimes seen on labels include Brunate, Bussia, Ornato, Rocche and Cannubi. In Barbaresco the higher Southern vineyards in the Treiso subregion are generally associated with the most perfumed and elegant wines, the wines from Neive being powerful and tannic while those clustered around the town of Barbaresco show both admirable perfume and structure. Standout Crus include Asili, Ronchi, Roncagliette and Starderi.
Australia’s first flirtation with nebbiolo began in the seventies, with the first clones surprisingly bought over from California rather than Italy. These lesser vines initially held the quality of the local wines back and it wasn’t really until the mid-nineties that top clonal material, such as the Lampia La Morra clone bought in by Yalumba, arrived on Australian shores. The last decade has seen the quality of local wines skyrocket producing wines with subtle and alluring perfumes although without quite the density or structure of the greatest Italian examples.
Today plantings are found across the country in a diverse range of regions, such as the Mornington Peninsula, Beechworth, Heathcote, the Adelaide Hills and Margaret River. Of these two quite different regions are standing out for the quality of their wines. The first is in North-Eastern Victoria, centring around the King Valley and Beechworth, where a warm relatively continental climate gives focus and intensity of savoury fruit to the local wines. While Pizzini is the standout, other credible wines are coming from the likes of Brokenwood and Amulet.
The other region with a small group of quality conscious and dedicated producers is the cooler Adelaide Hills with the best wines showing a perfume reminiscent of fine Barbaresco backed by admirable structure. Arrivo, made by husband and wife team Peter Godden and Sally McGill, is a standout making wines that are quite Italian in style with restrained, yet complex fruit weaved into a palate marked by superb tannin management and a core of fresh acidity. These are wines that are classically structured and made to flower in the bottle. Roving winemaker Steve Pannell also sources his nebbiolo fruit from the Adelaide Hills producing a riper interpretation that shows exceptional fruit complexity and purity. Of the other areas experimenting with nebbiolo, Heathcote has done the best to date with robust wines from the likes of Jasper Hill, and Vinea Marson full of dense, chewy fruit.
One issue that is as pertinent here as much as it is at the home of nebbiolo is winemaking style. Traditionally the greatest nebbiolos were made with a long maceration of forty days or more and then followed by up to four or more years in old, large Slovenian Oak barrels. Today many more modern Italian producers, such as Roberto Voerzio and La Spinetta, are reducing maceration times to less that seven days and aging in often new French oak for between 12 and 24 months.
Unsurprisingly our local winemakers are largely pursuing a more modern style, which suits the local palette. But that doesn’t stop some taking up the challenge, at least in part. At Arrivo, Godden and McGill have recently offered their first release of the Arrivo Nebbiolo Lunga Macerazione from the 2006 vintage, which spent 72 days on skins, long even by Italian standards, before sitting in old oak barrels for between six and sixteen months.
In the world of nebbiolo, there is little doubt that the wines of Piedmont remain supreme. Unlike for grapes such as cabernet sauvignon, shiraz and chardonnay, where the new world challenges the old there are few if any contenders that can realistically compete against the finest Italian examples. The reasons behind this are fairly simple. Firstly, it is only in the last decade that we have seen exceptional clonal stocks being made available to winemakers across the globe. Perhaps most importantly, though, is nebbiolo’s fickle character, some say even more finicky than pinot noir with climate a key factor. Few, if any, regions have conditions that come close to that found around the hills of Alba. Locked in by mountain ranges on three sides, it is phenomenally continental with snowfalls in Winter and Summer daytime temperatures reaching 34 degrees while in the evening it drops back to 13. The Langhe is also blessed with a fertile and moist climate giving the local wines great freshness and vibrance of flavour.
But despite the climatic limitations, momentum is building behind an Australian style of nebbiolo with super-cuveés, such as Pizzini’s Coronamento and the Arrivo Lunga Macerazione marking a significant step up in respect given to this most noble of Italian grapes. It seems only a matter of time before these wines and others are recognised as exceptional examples of this fabled variety and the equal to some very fine wines from the traditional home of nebbiolo.
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