Barolo is among the handful of classic wine zones around the world in which each vintage is analyzed meticulously by critics and collectors, whose proclamations often have a huge impact on the sales of wines in any given year. It used to be that Barolo was one of the wine world’s true “marginal” climates, in which the late-ripening Nebbiolo grape struggled to mature completely. Three great vintages in 10 was considered a victory. So far in the 2000s, we’ve been blessed with good fortune in terms of Barolo vintages, and the most recent release, 2015, is spot on.
Today’s wine from Diego Pressenda is a great example of what I consider to be the principal strength of the vintage: the charm and accessibility of the wines right now. In many parts of Europe, 2015 was a hot-climate blockbuster of a vintage, producing exceptionally inky, chunky versions of many classic reds, but in Barolo, the net effect has mostly been a friendly style of Barolo, neither hugely extracted nor fiercely tannic but nestled right in the comfy middle. The 2015s I’ve tasted so far, Pressenda’s included, remind me a lot of the Barolos from 1998—wines with relatively gentle tannins and skewed more medium-bodied but nevertheless lacked for nothing in the aroma/flavor/complexity/varietal character component. The ’98s were great restaurant wines for that reason, and the ’15s have a similar charm. Pressenda’s gives you all that at a reasonable price, while also promising to deliver thrills 10 and 15 years down the line. And that’s everything I’m looking for in a great Barolo!
The Pressenda property is called La Torricella, where they operate a restaurant and agriturismo in addition to farming 13 hectares of grapes for an assortment of Piedmontese whites and reds. The winery itself is at the southern edge of the Barolo appellation in Monforte d’Alba, close to that village’s border with the neighboring commune of Roddino. The Pressenda vineyards are in both towns, with the Nebbiolo for Barolo hailing from a southeast-facing site with a high sandstone content mixed with limestone marl. Namesake Diego Pressenda had previously sold his grapes to others but began producing wines under his own label in 2004, and now it’s his daughter, Sylvia, and her brother, Oscar, who run the cellar.
The “Barbadelchi” bottling (not a vineyard designation) is sourced from Nebbiolo planted in 1995 and was macerated on its skins for 15 days during fermentation. This is not an especially long time for a Barolo wine to spend on its skins (some spend more than a month), so this may explain the wine’s fine-grained tannins. It was aged for 36 months in large-capacity (25-hectoliter) French oak vats before bottling, and while some spice and hints of vanilla from the oak are noticeable, they’re well integrated into the wine’s whole already. In the glass, the wine is a textbook deep garnet-red with hints of pink and orange at the rim, with perfumed aromas of red and black cherries, wild strawberry, cranberry, black plum, tobacco, dried herbs, and warm spices. It doesn’t behave like a typical “young” Barolo: tannin and acid are both fairly subdued—again, by Nebbiolo standards—and the wine already shows great length on the finish. If you’re enjoying a bottle soon (which you should), decant it an hour before consuming at 60-65 degrees in Burgundy stems. I think it’s going to be a brilliant wine in 5-7 years’ time and continue to age gracefully well beyond that. It’s got all the right stuff and will pair beautifully with beef, lamb, squab, mushroom pastas and risottos, and of course truffles should you decide to wait until November to crack a bottle. Check out the attached Porcini mushroom “rub” to use on steak—it was meant to be paired with a wine like this. Enjoy!
