Brett happens

Aldo Vacca, the managing director of Produttori del Barbaresco, was in Quebec recently to attend a series of events. One of them was a trade tasting of eight PdB wines – the 2010 Langhe and seven 2007 Barbarescos, including six single-vineyard wines. I was lucky enough to be offered a place and ended up sitting immediately to Aldo’s left. Many thanks to oenopole for this rare opportunity to taste these wines – long among my favourites – and to spend time chatting with Aldo, a man very much like the wines of the cooperative he heads: down-to-earth, dapper, focused, eloquent and ultimately inspiring.

Considered by many to be the top wine-growers’ cooperative in the world, Produttori del Barbaresco made its first wines in 1960. That, however, was a “terrible vintage” (quoting Aldo) in the region, so the first wines that bore the PdB’s label were the 1961s. In 1967 the co-op and Gaja became the first winemakers to produce single-vineyard bottlings. The co-op currently has 52 members.

Aldo says there are four keys to the co-op’s high quality and reputation:

1. The region. All the grapes, even those in the entry-level Langhe, come from the Barbaresco DOC.
2. Co-op members must sell all the Nebbiolo grapes they grow to the co-op – “100% belonging,” as Aldo puts it – though they’re free to do whatever they want with the other grapes they grow (usually Barbera and Dolcetto).
3. Each load of grapes is evaluated and paid for based on its quality (sugar, colour and tannins are the current evaluation criteria). In 2012, the prices ranged from €2.00 to €5.20 a kilo and averaged €4.20.
4. Most importantly, in Aldo’s opinion, are the single-vineyard bottlings.

Not only are the Produttori admired for making some of the most classic and beguiling Barbarescos, their wines are also seen as delivering unbeatable QPR. As I wrote of the 2001 Rio Sordo a few years back, “It may seem odd to refer to a $50 bottle as a bargain, but that’s exactly what this is.” When I asked Aldo why the co-op didn’t raise its prices, he shrugged and said the members make a good living as it is and “they’re not greedy.”

All of PdB’s Barbarescos are made the same way. Fermentation takes place in large, temperature-controlled cement and stainless steel vats using cultivated “Barolo” yeasts and lasts about three weeks. It is followed by lengthy maceration with regular pump-overs and punch-downs of the cap. The wines are then transferred to Slavonian oak botti for 36 months’ maturation, after which they are bottled unfiltered and with a small squirt of sulphur dioxide and laid down another six or more months before release.

There are nine single-vineyard bottlings. As all are made exactly the same way, the only difference between them is the vineyards the grapes were grown in. This makes a horizontal tasting an opportunity to taste the influence of terroir.

The Barbaresco vineyards run from fertile land near the Tanaro River to vineyards higher up the slopes of the valley, where the soil is less rich and more limestoney. The lower vineyards produce fruitier, more forward wines, the higher vineyards wines with more depth and power.

2007 was a mild winter with early bud break; the growers were afraid of frost damage but the temperature never went below freezing. The summer was also mild. Rain was manageable. The fall was near ideal and the harvest was the longest on record. Aldo feels the single-vineyard wines from this vintage should peak at “seven to ten years of life.”

Aldo characterized the most recent vintages as follows: 2010 “light,” 2011 “extremely ripe” and 2012 “ideal, between the two.”

You’ll find my tasting notes after the jump.

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