Nebbiolo Previews 2024: Roero DOCG 2021, Barbaresco DOCG 2021, Roero Riserva DOCG 2020, Barbaresco Riserva DOCG 2019 and Retrospectives

by Michael Godel

What is Barbaresco? The answer can’t help but be complex, but the best approach is to look back, to recall some of the finest nebbiolo tasted from the denomination’s villages and communes, of Alba, Barbaresco, Neive and Treiso. Memories of unrelenting Barbaresco having acted out with impunity, aromatic exoticism, power, fragrance, precision and balance. Exceptional and unparalleled nebbiolo built upon tannic building blocks, understood, necessary, gratifying and satisfying. Recollection and reminiscence will return to the most human emotions, to the most underestimated of Piedmontese wines. Those that make you think, smile, wink, cry and sigh. They that speak of the vineyard and how properly they are treated. The nebbioli that get under your skin, teach you what you need to know and tell you that everything is alright. Barbaresco as good friends, therapists and if need be, they can be festaioli (party people).

The finest Barbaresco knows itself like a great human perfectly comfortable in its own skin and it might live to the age of 30 without experiencing one single moment of stress. They are quietly mature and in a lovely state of nebbiolo being, cautiously complex, gently stirring emotion, reserved, demure and only wishing to be experienced in states of calm and comfort. Aromas but a whisper and flavours tacitly generous, unspoken while turning up the volume. Low and slow development lingering tannin, untangled, untwisted and liberated. Nebbiolo spoken with the utmost clarity and reminders that Barbareschi can offer some of the greatest nebbiolo values. Think of a vintage and forward 15 years to when the integration of fruit causes the wine to become a victim of happy imbibers. Such is the case for the imagination and projections for two dozen international journalists gathered at the Albeisa Wines offices in Alba for the 28th edition of Nebbiolo Prima. Each possessive of their own personal calling to mind of past experiences in order to bring about a focus on the present.

Barbaresco from Alba are to a nebbiolo very pretty examples, red fruit openly generous and available with fresh roses as the main perfume. Most are lovely with mid term aging potential. For the village and commune of Barbaresco 2021 is an airy, dreamy and ethereal vintage with that lightness of nebbiolo being that might make some think this style could not exist at a high level of nebbiolo. They would be wrong because this is precisely what it means to be Barbaresco, albeit weightless and still by dint of being supremely confident. The fruit is in play, the tannins austere, not yet ready to join the fray and the potential is spoken in unwritten ways. From Neive the nebbioli are village typical of this full and substantial aromatic presence as if the perfume were predicated on glycerol, or at least the equivalent per se. More airy and open quality but also nervy, with real fruit flavours that receive accent from sweet spice. As for Treiso, the wines are richly grippy and of a power that needs to relent before these nebbiolo can be assessed and enjoyed in plain sight. So correct in their aromatic ways, not looking for praise, but worthy of it anyway. Intense nebbiolo here from Treiso, implosive and really tightly wound.

The 2019 Barbaresco Riserva are young, high flying, out of the blue, up there in the thinning air, unencumbered by wood or gravity. Plenty of fantasy, singular style and distinction, built on substantial fruit, fluidity, ease, calm and a well structured frame. As for the season coming next for Riserva, 2020 was launched by a Spring with quite a bit of rain, followed by a warm summer and then a normal harvest in the last week of September into the first of October for both the nebbiolo of Roero and Barbaresco. When the 2023s come into play they will be the children unscathed with no significant problems noted in the Langhe, especially as it pertains to the perenospera (downy mildew) virus. In fact 2021 was a much more difficult and challenging vintage due to extreme climatic events.

*Marina Marcarino, President Albeisa Wines*

Roero 2021 showed as well if not better than at any previous Anteprima for the region. Very forward fruit with a distinct vintage nebbiolo feel, in other words true specificity for nebbiolo with Roero as its host. Expressive wines were made of great richness and acids are still working through their repetitions. As per the sandy-mineral-clay soils the chalky tannins work nebbiolo with good pulse and so the potential is, well, potentially great. The 2020 vintage is a charming one for Roero nebbiolo, perhaps less extracted and concentrated as compared to some but no less important or structured for good aging potential. In the finer examples fruit quality is there to stand up and be counted alongside structural parts. Well made wines in 2020, with clear ambition to age, which they will do quite well. There is some reduction but this seems to be a trend for Roero Riserva from the vintage.

Year after year the opportunity to taste so many Nebbiolo and pay visits with producers is made possible by the organization of the Consorzio Albeisa and the leadership of President Marina Marcarino. Langhe Vini are supported and valorized by the Consorzio di Tutela Barolo Barbaresco Alba Langhe e Dogliani and these tastings support the mission. Much of the Anteprima’s success is facilitated by A-B Comunicazione team of Anna Barbon, Linda Foltran and Cinzia Luxardo. This twenty eighth year of Nebbiolo Prima once again acted as the official international preview for the nebbiolo of Barolo, Barbaresco, and Roero. The following are Godello’s Roero and Barbaresco notes from Nebbiolo Prima 2024. There are 111 reviews in total; (11) Roero DOCG 2021, (15) Roero Riserva DOCG 2020, (3) Roero Riserva DOCG 2010, (62) Barbaresco DOCG 2021, (13) Barbaresco Riserva DOCG 2019, (3) Barbaresco DOCG 2011 and (4) Barbaresco Riserva DOCG 2009.