2020 Barolo: quarantine, balance, and a growing contrast
In 2020, amidst a growing global pandemic, quarantined winemakers in Barolo enjoyed the second vintage in an impressive trifecta, concluding for some with next year’s 2021 release. Following treacherous heatwaves and damaging hail the year before, 2020 was comparatively mellow and mundane, despite being warmer overall, and only marginally drier. Importantly, the vintage was defined […]
2019 Barolo: a modern vintage, classic wines and changing tides
2019 beckons welcome acclaim and widespread success in Barolo. Amidst an undeniably modern vintage, two important insights define the vintage.
Billecart-Salmon: enduring history, evolving savoir faire, and six decades of Nicolas François
By 1844, Champagne’s grand marques were already measuring global shipments in millions of bottles. Following phylloxera, consecutive troublesome vintages, and two devastating wars, they acquired vast swathes of land from countless small growers and offered stable long-term contrat de vendange to many more. Subsequently, production grew and consolidated; between 1900 and 2000, production exploded, totalling […]
Chiara Condello: classicism, daring and reviving Predappio
Italy’s economic woes took their toll on Predappio. Today, Chiara Condello has enthused collectors and critics, and is helping revive regional winegrowing.
Regenerative Viticulture: the ‘new viticulture’ or a backward step?
Humans have been farming for at least 12,000 years, advancing from nomadic hunter-gatherers to settled farmers independently in numerous disparate territories. Nomads domesticated animals first, followed by the founder crops of neolithic agriculture. Early farmers implemented rudimentary irrigation systems, used simple ploughs, and practised companion planting. Improvements continued in earnest during the Middle Ages; iron […]
Oddero: historical foundations, substantial contributions and greater heights
Between 1835 and 1846, Barolo went dry. Before then, winemakers vinified nebbiolo as a sweet wine. And while grapes had been cultivated in Piedmont for many centuries prior, it was during this period that some locals understood winegrowing to be a serious, potentially lucrative endeavour. The Oddero family lived in La Morra at least a […]
Wine’s paradox of polarity
Today, ‘conventional’ and ‘natural’ wine are more alike than any urbanite millennial or snooty boomer would dare admit, each woefully depriving. Natural wine—atavistic and pure—laments intervention, believing wine to be born, not made, chastising an increasingly exhaustive list of allegedly sinful practices. Meanwhile, traditional oenological training, well-suited to making ‘clean’ and consistent wine, has distanced […]
Burlotto: Arctic expeditions, Monvigliero and the ‘jewel of Verduno’
Giovan Battista Burlotto bravely reorientated his family business. Today, Fabio Burlotto has taken G.B. Burlotto to new, exemplary heights.
Flavescence dorée: incurable phytoplasma meets Piedmontese grit
Progress notwithstanding, winegrowers face continued pressure from a multitude of pests and diseases. Some can be prevented, treated and managed by winegrowers; meanwhile, others resist all effort, proving more virulent and problematic. Among these, the grapevine yellow, flavescence dorée, a phytoplasma—a type of obligate intracellular parasite—is transmitted by the leafhopper vector Scaphoideus titanus. Symptoms include […]