To the Italian wine lover, a well-made, well-priced Langhe Nebbiolo is one of life’s necessities. It’s as essential to our long-term survival as potable water and regular meals.
It’s not always possible to shell out the extra dollars to drink a Barolo or Barbaresco—the pinnacles of expression for Piedmont’s Nebbiolo grape—nor is it always necessary. Not when you can come so tantalizingly close, at about half the price, with a wine labeled Langhe Nebbiolo. The ‘Langhe’ is the broader area of southeastern Piedmont that includes the Barolo and Barbaresco DOCG appellations, and when producers want to release Nebbiolo wines that are easier to drink—receiving much less barrel and bottle aging before release than Barolos/Barbarescos do—they bottle a Langhe Nebbiolo. This 2014 performs like a Barolo without costing like one, so make room in your pantry for a healthy supply; it’s priced for stocking up, and it’s only going to get better.
Much like Tuscany’s Rosso di Montalcino—the lighter-weight, earlier-release sibling of Brunello di Montalcino—Langhe Nebbiolo is the ‘little brother’ label of Barolo/Barbaresco. Like most of its contemporaries in the region, Cantina Stroppiana sources grapes for its Langhe Nebbiolo from many of the same vineyards that supply its Barolo bottlings. Located in a hamlet just outside the famed Barolo village of La Morra, Stroppiana is a small, family-run property, farming just 5.5 hectares of vines (a mix of estate-owned and leased parcels). Established subscribers are likely to recognize the name, as we’ve offered multiple Barolo bottlings from the estate; their reds are polished, perfumed snapshots of the La Morra terroir, where Barolo tends to be more finessed and ‘Burgundian’ in its expression compared to other villages in the zone.
And—again like Rosso di Montalcino—what you get from a good Langhe Nebbiolo is a taste of the grape in a more stripped-down, less adorned (i.e. oaked) form. This wine is sourced from the estate’s home vineyard in La Morra as well as from a site in the Barolo village of Monforte d’Alba; it is fermented on its skins for about a week (compared to about two weeks for their Barolos) and was aged in French oak barriques for 12 months before bottling (whereas the Barolos spend twice as long in wood). It was aged just a few months in bottle before it was released, while its Barolo siblings must spend at least a year aging in bottle by law.
As I mentioned above, Stroppiana’s 2014 Langhe Nebbiolo could easily be mistaken for a Barolo if it were tasted blind: the concentration, structure, and distinctive Nebbiolo perfume are all there. In the glass, it’s a textbook light garnet with hints of orange and pink at the rim. Aromas of dried cherry, strawberry, currant, blood orange peel, rose petals, tar, and turned earth all waft upward from the glass; these sensations carry through to the medium-plus bodied palate, at which point you detect identical tannin and heft for what’s typical for serious Barolo. If opening a bottle tonight, decant it about 45 minutes before serving in Burgundy stems at 60-65 degrees. It’s got the woodsy, underbrushy quality that so distinguishes the Nebbiolo variety, and there may be no better wine in the world to accompany freshly foraged wild mushrooms. The attached pasta preparation is one we recommend often, and for good reason—Nebbiolo is also the ultimate truffle wine, but if you can’t get your hands on actual truffles, this recipe will get you mighty close. Cheers!
