- A Stealth Winery from an Ancient Family
- 2,500 Years in the Wine Business
- Over 400 Years of Winemaking
The House Style
- More Old School Than Any Langhe Nebbiolo or Barbaresco Made Today
- Remarkable Traditional Nebbiolos
- Stored in Old Neutral Barrels Until Their Recent Bottling
- Some of the Most Spectacular Wine in Italy Bar None
- Really Unlike Almost Anything Made Today
2015 Rocche Di Barbari Langhe Nebbiolo "Primanebbia"
- A Stunning Baby Barbaresco (Barbaresco Terroir)
- An Introduction to the Estate's Style at a Much Lower Price
- Wines that Are About Aromatics, Balance, Elegance
- As Much Liquid Poetry As It Is Wine
- Creates a Wave of Emotion in the Drinker
- Everyone Needs to Get This Wine and Try It
- Soaring Nose of Spices, Roses, Cherries and Tar
- Intoxicating
- Palate: Unreal Elegance
- Deep, Ripe, Rich and Complex
- So Dense, So Concentrated and So Juicy
- More Sozet/Cuchet-Beliando Than Anything in the Langhe
- Amazing Fruit
- Under $40 from the Langhe, I Have Never Tasted Anything Like This
- Case Pricing
The Classic Old School Master of the Langhe - Pre "Barolo Boys"
I've been waiting to sell today's wine for over a year. This is from the first batch of samples I got in maybe July 2020 deep in the heart of the pandemic. I dream about this wine. I'm, as you know not one for hyperbolic statements but today's wine is the finest Langhe Nebbiolo I have ever had. It is a spiritual wine. A wine so good, so moving it creates a wave of emotion in the drinker. This is Langhe Nebbiolo from what I now consider the classic old school master of the Langhe.
These wines are made the way they were made in the days before the "Barolo Boys." Long, slow extractions. An emphasis on the secondary characterisitcs that make nebbiolo great, not on getting the maximum amount of fruit. But the fruit they do get is extraordinary.
Yes, I know, there's many old school masters. Bartolo Mascarello, Giuseppe Mascarello, Cappelano and so on. But do they make a Langhe Nebbiolo as good as today's wine? The answer is quite simple. Absolutely not. It's a wine that puts to shame most Barolo and Barbaresco. This is a winery that is incomparable in the Langhe and one has to go to some of the more "head in the clouds" growers of France to really understand what is going on at Rocche de Barbari. They are more Sozet/Cuchet-Beliando than anything in the Langhe. See the bottom of the email for their aging state of the art aging bottling and aging system. They basically bottle on demand and have one bottling a year.
This estate is maybe our best estate in Piedmont. But the offers have been sporadic because of their unique bottling system and they basically shut down for 18 months due to the pandemic and are just about to open back up. The family members are all treasures. They are earnest, kind and hardworking and not motivated by commercial success. Perfect for Fass Selections. They are quirky and eccentric and I work on their schedule and will do whatever they want or need me to do as the wines are that good. They are unbelievable wines and have somewhat of a cult following at Fass Selections. The cult will get a lot bigger today.
The Wine
The 2015 Rocche dei Barbari Langhe Nebbiolo "Primanebbia" can be had for $41.99 a bottle and $39.99 a case. They raised their prices due to being shut down for 18 months and I have significantly lowered my margins to to get this to under $40 case pricing. If there is ever a reason to buy a case of $40 Langhe Nebbiolo this is it. This is as big a no brainer case purchase as I've ever offered. Here's my first note from a few weeks ago.
As awesome as ever and I hope they bottle it soon so I can offer it (they will!). Soaring nose of spices, roses, cherries and tar. Super ethereal. Also wild mint. Tree bark. Old chestnut. Intoxicating aromas and seems much finer than the 12. It is much much finer than the 12 which was wonderful but has nothing on the 15.
Here is my previous note from 33 weeks ago.
What a nose. Mesmerizing. Just so so aromatic. Tar, roses galore, sawdust, old books, ash, smoke, game,
hint of spice and mint. Insanely complex. Dizzying aromas right out of the bottle. Wow these wines are something else.
hint of spice and mint. Insanely complex. Dizzying aromas right out of the bottle. Wow these wines are something else.
What a palate. So dense, so concentrated and so juicy. Insane top 1% freshness. Amazing fruit and finish. As it airs it gets some elegance and the tannins become velvety and more integrated. Chestnut vibes on this and just awesome length. Stays with you. Nose becomes 4 dimensional now on my 2nd pour. This is just insane quality for Langhe Nebbiolo. Spanks so many Barolo and Barbaresco. God this is so floral and nuanced now. Just impossible complexity for this level. Amazing fruit. This gets more and more elegant. Much more elegant than the 12. So much lift. Drinks like $80 classic barbaresco.
This is an offer that, for several reasons, is absolutely unheard of in the world of Langhe wines. It's basically the opportunity to buy 1950s style Langhe wine in perfectly pristine condition. To be clear, the headline wine today is 14 years old and tastes like a perfectly aged bottle of hyper traditional old Barbaresco.
But this is a little complicated, so I need you to bear with me and try and read this.
Very Important Background
Bottle Variation: The Scourge of Old Langhe Wines. As we all know, Langhe wines are aged before bottling. For Barolo, they must be aged at least 38 months, at least 18 in barrel. For Barbaresco, this is 24 months, at least 9 of which must be in barrel. At this point, they may be bottled. And this is where the problems start. Bottles, as we all know, are sealed with corks and corks are natural products. The key thing that affects the aging curve of a wine is the amount of oxygen that the cork allows into the wine. Because all corks are different and allow different amounts of oxygen to seep in, bottles from the same vintage, producer and vineyard will age at different rates. So if you try 3 bottles of a wine, one could be perfect, one could be too young and one could be over the hill. The problem is that if you are spending $100 or more on old Langhe wines so you are really spending $300 a bottle for each good bottle.
The Solution: Barrel Ageing until Bottling.
What today's producer has figured out is that if you leave the wine in the barrels until they are ready to bottle and drink, you eliminate the problem of cork variation. And this is what they do. They store them in large neutral barrels (or sometimes concrete after a time). Furthermore, every cork that they use is tested by both specialized equipment and experienced human testers to ensure that there is no cork taint (TCA). The wines are only bottled at the time of sale.
The Style: Old, Old, Old School
The style here is hyper traditional. We are talking very long and slow fermentations. Super long macerations. They are not trying to maximize extraction - it's almost like they are trying to avoid extraction in order to allow secondary characteristics to shine through.
These are like wines that were made in the 1950s except, of course, they are bought from the cellar and using the process described above to preserve the wines on a consistent ageing curve.
The Family
I cannot tell you the name of the family but they have been in the wine business for a long time. The first records of them being in the wine business are from 492 BC. Yes that's over 2,500 years. They have been making wine since 1585 (over 400 years).
Right now, they are in basically beta testing with their sales and plan to substantially increase prices once they make a formal announcement in a couple of years. I am not even allowed to mention the name of the winemaker, not even his first name.
2015 Rocche dei Barbari Langhe Nebbiolo "Primanebbia" - $43.99
($167.96 4-Pack, $479.88 12 pack {$39.99!})
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