Although it won’t be too long before 2016 Barbaresco wines start showing up here, let’s first make the proper deep dive into 2015—a year which, as in much of Europe, received a lot of much-deserved hype. The 2015s only really began appearing in the US in earnest toward the end of 2018 (as is typical), and if today’s robust and cellar-worthy Barbaresco from Pasquale Pelissero is any indication, we’ll have many more ’15s for you to choose from as the year progresses.
This is certainly a great way to kick things off: An artisan-scale, vineyard-designate Barbaresco at a sub-$40 price point is fast becoming an endangered species: Each year, worldwide demand for Barbaresco and Barolo increases, but the region’s vineyard acreage stays the same. Something’s got to give, so take advantage of an exceptional value like this while you still can—there is no doubt that this deeply mineral, soulful ’15, from the “Bricco San Giuliano” cru in the village of Neive, has a long life ahead of it. You don’t typically hear collectors brag about how little they paid for a bottle, but this is that kind of wine; it is poised to become a sleeper superstar in your cellar, believe me.
Neive is one of the three main villages of the Barbaresco DOCG (the others are Barbaresco itself and Treiso), and, in my experience, some of the prettiest, most floral, most classically structured styles of Barbaresco hail from here. Most of Neive’s best-known cru vineyards—including Albesani/Santo Stefano, made internationally famous by the late Bruno Giacosa—have a southwestern exposure, an aspect which tends to result in more firmly tannic styles of wine. The Pelissero family’s “Bricco San Giuliano” vineyard, itself a southwest-facing site at about 400 meters’ elevation (bricco is a Piedmontese word referring to the crest of a hill), is effectively a monopole: It is the crown jewel of the Cascina Crosa farmstead, which the brothers Giovanni and Giuseppe Pelissero purchased from a local noble family in 1921. Giuseppe’s son Pasquale, known as “Papa,” brought the wine estate into the modern era, releasing his first commercial vintage in 1971 and continuing to raise its profile until his death in 2007; now it’s Pasquale’s daughter, Ornella, who works the family vineyards with the help of her husband, Lorenzo, and son, Simone.
When you hear wine experts speak of ‘bouquet,’ they’re speaking of wines like this—wines with aromas that fill the surrounding area right after pouring; aromas which tax the descriptive resources of even the most grandiloquent tasters. Great Nebbiolo is always a tug-of-war between fruit and earth, sweet and savory. There’s the cherry kirsch checked by hints of tar and tobacco. The red currant and dried cherry countered by bitter orange peel and a varnish-y note like the inside of an antique cabinet. The rose petal florals and the humid, funky soil. This wine presents all these in richer-than-normal fashion: It’s a Barbaresco that could stand toe-to-toe with many a Barolo in terms of depth and tannic structure.
Most of the wine in this 2015 aged 24 months in large (25-30 hectoliter) French oak
botti, with 10% aged for the same period in new French oak
barriques. In the glass, it’s a deep ruby with garnet reflections, not yet showing much brick red at the rim. The sandalwood spice and some drying oak tannin is detectable at this youthful stage in the wine’s life, but so is an exceptionally deep core of black cherry and
fraises de bois fruit and a strong underpinning of crushed graphite minerality, black tea, and black trumpet mushroom notes, and lots of underbrush. Medium-plus in body and muscular on the palate, this needs a long (1-2 hour) decant if you want to maximize enjoyment now, and some beef cheeks or other richer meat dish to pair with it wouldn’t hurt, either. I for one want to see what this wine become in about five years’ time. With all the available evidence in front of me, I’m betting it will be spectacular and remain that way for many years thereafter. It feels like a 20-year wine for sure, and those don’t come around so often at this price point. Take advantage while you still can and load in some of this!
