BAROLO: The King of Wines and the Wine of Kings

John Jackson, DipWSET a/k/a Attorney Somm explains the Barolo region in detail, including a discussion of the Nebbiolo grape, aging requirements and the type of Barolo wine you can purchase that does not require extended bottle age after you purchase it.
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For more Attorney Somm videos analyzing wine regions, please click the following links:
Wine Collecting 101: Priorat Wines

Wine Collecting 101: Rioja Overview & 6 Top Rioja Wine Producers

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The king of wines and the wine of Kings in this video I’m discussing all things bolo why bolo well bolo is the source for some excellent wines and this region still offers excellent relative value compared to many other regions particularly burgundy burgundy prices have skyrocketed lately and so many

Collectors are looking for an alternative many of those collectors have decided to purchase bolo bolo is a very collectible wine because it’s capable of Aging well in the seller in addition it’s often a good idea to have a diversified seller so if you have clients or guests who enjoy bolo it’s

Always nice to be able to offer them something that they enjoy and in addition if you have a special meal for which bolo is an ideal food pairing it will come in handy then as well the bolo docg is an appalachi in pedma that includes a number of villages that are

Located Southwest of the city of Alba many of The Vineyards in bolo are located 2 to 400 m above sea level and they are on South and Southwest facing slopes this is ideal but it is allows good sunlight interception and there’s also some cooling influences the combination results in an extended

Growing season that in many vintages allows the grapes to ripen fully but yet slowly and over a long extended growing season which helps to preserve acidity and freshness in the grapes this extended growing season comes in handy because Bola has to be 100% nebiolo And nebiolo is a late ripening grape and so

It’s important for the nebiolo to get ripe before the fall rains come in the pedmont region wines made from nebiolo such as bolo are typically Light In Color often times I would characterize it as pale Ruby they have pronounced aromatic in flavor intensity they’re often characterized by high acidity and

High tannin common descriptors include red cherry red plum violet rose petals and sometimes tar as well bro docg wines have to be aged for a minimum of 3 years and 2 months following Harvest of which 18 months must be an oak there’s also Bola Reserva wines and these must be

Aged for five years in 2 months of which 18 months must be an oak these long maturation times add to the costs of the wine many people assume that bolo has to have extensive bottle aging before it can be enjoyed that’s not always the case however it typically depends on the

Soils in which the nebiolo was produced in the north and Western portions of the Appalachian however there’s blue gray Marl soils that often produce wines that are lighter and more aromatic and which can be enjoyed with just a few years of additional bottle aging an excellent

Example of this is lamora in the South and Eastern portion of the Appalachian however the soils are yellow gray compacted sand and and clay and these soils such as those that exist in songa de Alba for example produce wines that are often extremely closed and structured in tanic and which require up

To 10 to 15 years in the bottle before they become enjoyable like Pon Noir nabio is capable of expressing itself differently depending on the various conditions and Vineyards in which it’s grown that’s another reason why the single Vineyard or crw have become very popular with collectors as a result the

BOS docg now recognizes a variety of subzones the subzone system is referred to as the MGA and the subzones include an entire Village such as lamora or a single Vineyard such as kenoi and the subzone system also allows for a number of individual Vineyards to be included

In a subzone such as the turlo MGA if you’re a collector looking for the best vintages of bolo you’ll want to keep an eye out for 1970 19 1971 1978 1982 1989 1996 1999 2001 2004 2006 2010 2013 and 2015 and 16 to understand where bolo is today as

A region it’s also important to understand the bolo Wars the Bola War started back in the 1970s when some of the young wine makers ERS rebelled against the traditional production methods among other things these young wine makers wanted to do things like green harvesting to restrict yields and produce wines that were more

Concentrated and they also wanted to use new French Oak BS which are smaller barrels that are about 225 lers in size rather than the huge old oak slavonian casks that were used traditionally the result was that wines that were produced using these methods had more concentration

And they had a bit more polish and they were well received by critics these techniques enraged traditionalists however as they thought that the use of new French Oak would destroy the classic aromatics of nebiolo and replace them with descriptors that come from Oak aging such as vanilla clove coffee and

So forth these two groups had such hostile battles that the son of one young mind maker actually took a chainsaw to his beloved old oak casks and instead replaced them with BS for these efforts he was disinherited so this was certainly a bitterly contentious issue for up to two

Decades before it finally got resolved eventually most producers ended up somewhere in the middle many producers for example will use a mix of new and old oak BS for the first year of maturation and then they’ll switch to large old oak casks for year number two of course there are still some producers

Who use one extreme or the other but those are definitely in the minority and at least everyone can get along now