A Hedonist in the Cellar_ Adventures in Wine - Jay McInerney [25]
A native of sleepy Rocchetta Tanaro, some ten miles east of the town of Asti, Bologna inherited a property called Braida and experimented with practices that seemed radical at the time. He planted Barbera on prime, sun-drenched slopes; picked the grapes late, to alleviate some of their acidity; and aged the juice in toasted new French oak barrels, which further softened the hard edges while lending the wine some wood tannins, giving it more structure. In 1982, the same year that changed the face of Bordeaux, Bologna created Bricco dell’Uccellone, a barrel-aged, vineyard-designated Barbera that rapidly caught the attention of the international wine world, and of Bologna’s neighbors. Bricco was the first super-Barbera. Call it Barbarella. (They’re big on nicknames in the Piedmont. L’Uccellone is named for the crowlike old woman who used to own the vineyard; l′uselun means big bird.)
More than two decades after Bologna created this new, sophisticated, smoking-jacket style of Barbera, it’s hard to generalize about this grape except to say that quality is better at all levels. Barbera is as stylistically all over the map as Zinfandel, another blending grape that has achieved recent renown. Many makers continue to produce the lighter-style Barbera—which can be a tremendous value, particularly given the recent string of stellar vintages in Piedmont. The 2000,2001, and 2003 vintages all achieved a ripeness that should counterbalance the natural acidity of the grape; good examples, like Michele Chiarlo’s Barbera d’Asti Superiore and Icardi’s Barbera d’Asti Tabarin, retail for about fifteen dollars. Barbera d’Asti is often fatter and fruitier than Barbera d’Alba, in part because the best, sunniest slopes in Alba are reserved for Nebbiolo, producing Barolo and Barbaresco. Many of the greatest producers of Barolo—Scavino, Clerico, Mascarello, Sandrone, and Aldo and Giacomo Conterno, among others— make supple, sophisticated Barbera d’Alba at a fraction of the price. The most concentrated, powerful Barberas are usually identified by vineyard name—often involving some variation of the word brie, which means hilltop in the local dialect. Price is another key indicator—the Barbarellas, like Franco Martinetti’s powerful Montruc, can sell for upwards of fifty dollars.
Bricco dell’Uccellone has proven itself over the past two decades to be a serious, ageworthy wine. Tasting at the winery this past spring with Raffaella and Giuseppe, Giacomo Bologna’s children, I was deeply impressed by the complexity and freshness of the ′89 and ′90 Bricco dell’Uccellone. The ′01 is another classic. The Bologna family makes several other excellent Barberas, including Bricco della Bigotta and Ai Suma. The most mind-boggling Barberas I’ve tasted recently were from La Spinetta, which in 2001 was named winery of the year in the Italian wine bible Gambero Rosso. My teeth are still stained from the experience of tasting the ′99 Barbera d’Alba Gallina and the ′99 Barbera d’Asti that spring; both reminded me in some ways of great, old-vine Zinfandels, and also reminded me of a blackberry fight I had with two fifth-grade classmates in Vancouver, Canada. We were picking blackberries, and after we’d filled two buckets and eaten several handfuls, we started throwing the surplus at one another. Thirty years later, Giuseppe Rivetti’s Barberas made me almost that exuberant.
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The Dark Secret of Bandol
Many of you fashionable diners and sophisticated travelers are probably familiar with the refreshing, slightly bitter rosés of Bandol. From West Hollywood to Sardinia, Domaine Ott rosé is the official summertime beverage of the Prada and Hermès brigades. But fewer are aware that Bandol—a middle-class resort and fishing town between Marseille and Toulon— is home to one of the world’s great red wines.
“Bandol rouge has been the love of my life,” says Alice Waters, one of the great epicures of our time. Indeed, Domaine Tempier rouge has been more or less the house wine at Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, since it opened, some thirty