BARBARESCO Overview & 4 Top Barbaresco Wine Producers

John Jackson, DipWSET a/k/a Attorney Somm explains Italy’s Barbaresco wine region in detail and then discusses four top Barbaresco wine producers whose wines you can purchase to start collecting Barbaresco wines. This video will be useful for wine collectors, students studying for wine certification classes or those who just want to discover some new wines to enjoy.

#italianwine #barbaresco #winevideo

Attorney Somm discusses the following wine producers from Barolo in this video:
Bruno Giacosa
Produttori del Barbaresco
Cascina delle Rose
Gaja

MORE ITALIAN WINE VIDEOS FROM ATTORNEY SOMM
For all of Attorney Somm’s Italian wine videos, please see the following playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2aDDJZh–pBBZ4-oO5vGz1NAvnF7OuoD

ITALIAN WINE REGION VIDEOS
Barbaresco: https://youtu.be/X3Y0-sshz3E
Barolo: https://youtu.be/YHc11Zxc9HQ?si=izhFr0keyVbpykLo
Brunello: https://youtu.be/2hsBf1Wg-p0?si=DR8tUmaMNw0jmlBf
Montepulciano d’Abruzzo: https://youtu.be/hE3mCTrlPNM?si=pUHp_i9kr1-JanU5
Chianti Classico: https://youtu.be/-r7982rPVdw?si=F-zJJlpjvYixNyoG

MORE ITALIAN WINE VIDEOS
Super Tuscan Wines: https://youtu.be/M50a0tNuRBc?si=-14qO-Nel8XBs_sn
2019 Brunello: https://youtu.be/JX_JjfRa2zY?si=zvIiHCQ4L3ZJv0yy
Italian White Wines: https://youtu.be/TXWWBUncqHw?si=kuaWjjCRk_cIZ2o6
Navigating an Italian Wine List: https://youtu.be/CRIlO0-4hvY
13 Top Italian Wines: https://youtu.be/zOe-Hfr9zo8

VIDEOS ABOUT ITALIAN WINERIES
Biondi-Santi: https://youtu.be/sgSJzDLG0Ak?si=rXLkKdEZGAjqmyIV
Sassicaia: https://youtu.be/KnzGQixQa7A?si=DvxQyVM-sZ18L4xd
Ornellaia & Masseto: https://youtu.be/bRST02o6A3M?si=7GDMx5rzvQKGIoqe
Antinori Super Tuscan Wines: https://youtu.be/5YwNSjtacg4?si=_y-ceKIMJq5Hkcms
Soldera: https://youtu.be/VQzqrUJulNg?si=sFknf0ESktICcCA1
Il Poggione: https://youtu.be/tzjbEtCph9g?si=72a-xxJwvFPCXBKt
Roberto Voerzio: https://youtu.be/tDzBrKc__pE?si=0wnc2oxNI3ui5z4J

ITALIAN WINE PODCASTS
Interview with Feudi di San Gregorio:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/cBL5o39yTNg?si=exsn28iODGzyvCLM
Part 2: https://youtu.be/j1Vb_3en3JQ?si=0oEO5brooDkWpbw4

To sign up for the flash site where I often find Barbaresco wines, click the following link:
https://www.lastbottlewines.com/invite/6215746e97c3146c8d3717b937d97a9e1f7fcb7b.html

To see some of my favorite wine accessories, please check out my Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/attorneysomm

This video is NOT sponsored. The link to the flash site is a referral link that is made available to anyone who signs up for this flash site. That means that if you use the link, you will get $10 off your first order and I will receive a modest credit. Likewise should you purchase anything from my Amazon storefront, I will receive a very modest commission.

in this video I’ll provide an overview of the barbaresco region and then reveal four of my favorite producers for barbaresco win barbaresco is a great choice for wine collectors because these wines are very age-worthy and they can gain tremendous complexity with additional bottle age at their Peak barbaresco wines can be absolutely mesmerizing unfortunately barbaresco tends to be overshadowed by bolo a bit both because it’s only onethird the size and because many people assume that bolo is better but of course on this channel regardless of what region you’re talking about anywhere in the world I always encourage selectivity by producer and even by vintage and as we’ll see in this video if you do that for barbaresco you can get some absolutely worldclass wines many of which are even less expensive than comparable or even lesser quality Bara wines better still another great thing about bar baresco is that the wines can typically be enjoyed a little bit earlier than their bolo counterparts for reasons that I’ll discuss in this video the barbaresco docg was established in 1980 and takes its name from the village of barbaresco nevertheless the barbaresco region includes not just the geographic territory of the village of barbaresco but also all the territory in the Villages of treso and na as well as a small part of Alba the best Vineyards in barbaresco are typically planted on South and Southwest facing slopes at elevations ranging from 150 M to 350 m above sea level although there are some Vineyards that are planted as high as 550 m above sea level these locations are ideal because they allow The Vineyards to have ideal sun exposure and also receive some cooling influences the barbaresco region shares many characteristics with the bar region except that The Vineyards are typically located at slightly lower elevations and the climate is slightly warmer in barbaresco this slightly warmer climate is significant as it means that Harvest is typically a week earlier in barbaresco which can be important if there’s fall rains approaching this is so because one of the characteristics of nebbiolo is that it’s a late ripening grade perhaps more importantly however the slightly warmer climate also reveals itself in the glass in many instances you’ll find that barbaresco can be a little bit more elegant a little bit less austere and capable of enjoying at an earlier time than bolo in addition bolo is not quite as able to withstand some of the hotter vintages as barbaresco in contrast barbaresco typically can have a little bit more freshness and have some very impressive wines even in some very hot vintages the main reason for this is the presence of the Toronto River and the fact that barbaresco receives its cooling influences during hotter vintages whereas bolo does not because the influence of the Toronto river is blocked in bolo by the lamora ridge barbaresco slightly riper style is also reflected in shorter minimum aging requirements barbaresco docg must mature for 26 months before release nine months of which must be in Oak and barbaresco Reserva docg must mature for 50 months before release including 9 months of that time period in Oak there’s also a 12.5% minimum alcohol by volume requirement but that’s typically not an issue these maturation requirements add to the production costs for barbaresco but less so than the minimum aging requirements in bolo since those are longer barbaresco must be 100% nebi so no additional grapes can be Blended in nebiolo is a black variety that’s early budding which means that is potentially vulnerable to Spring Frost that can reduce yields in addition nebiolo is also a late ripening grape so there can sometimes be issues with this grape getting fully ripe before the fall rains hit wines made from nebiolo such as barbaresco are typically pale Ruby in color with pronounced intensity of both Aromas and flavors descriptors often include red cherry red plum violets and Rose they can often have high acidity and high tannins and they typically have medium plus to full body and a medium plus to high alcohol level historically barbaresco producers Blended fruit from a number of different Vineyards to create their wines this blending can have a number of different advantages as for example if the fruit from one Vineyard is very ripe has a little bit less acidity and you have fruit from another Vineyard that has a little bit less ripe fruit but impressive acidity by blending that fruit in creating a wine you can have a better wine than if you bottled wines from each of those Vineyards separately these classic Blends continue to be extremely important in barbaresco and generally offer the best price points and the most affordable wines however barbaresco also his lad reputation is having some extremely high quality single Vineyards examples include aili and Raba like Pinon Noir however nebiolo is also capable of producing different results and also tends to reflect the site on which it is grown for that reason in the 1960s top producers such as Bruno josa and Angelo GA took a page from the burgundy Playbook and began to bottle and produce single Vineyard barbaresco Wines in 2007 there was an official system of subzones introduced within the rules of the barbaresco docg these regulations remended slightly in 2010 and the upshot is that there are now 66 different Geographic mentions or subzones that can be stated on labels of barbaresco wines in addition the word Vena or Vineyard can only be used on the labels for barbaresco if it’s used in connection with the officially recognized MGA on this channel I’m always a big fan of buying wines from the best vintages for a particular region and when you’re talking about barbaresco some of the very best vintages for the past 50 or 60 years include 1964 1970 and 1971 1978 1982 1989 1996 1999 2001 20 4 2006 2010 2013 2015 and 16 and 2019 currently you’ll also see a lot of the 2020 barbaresco on store shelves and I’ve had an opportunity to taste many of those wines my thoughts regarding the 2020 vintage is that whereas 2019 was very much a classic vintage and those wines will definitely benefit from some additional age in your seller 2020 was definitely a warmer vintage and so these wines are definitely much more approachable and they’re less austere and pretty much ready to enjoy right now if not in the next couple years so I would definitely be on the lookout for 2020 barbaresco if you’re looking for a seller defender or if you’re looking to enjoy wine in the near term with that by way of background I’m ready to discuss my four favorite producers of barbaresco wines these are the producers with which I’ve had the most tasting experience over an extended period of time and have a lot of confidence in if there’s any producers that you think are worthy of inclusion as well please be sure to let us know in the comments below Bruno giosa was a legendary wine maker whose career began way back in 1961 and continued until his unfortunate passing in 2018 since that time his daughter Bruna has run the operations at Bruna giocosa Winery Bruno josa is located in ye in the barbaresco region but it’s equally famous for the production of high quality bolo Bruno josa started out operating mostly a negotiat business he didn’t have his own Vineyards but he was extremely knowledgeable about all the highquality Vineyards in bolo and barbaresco and sourced some top fruit from throughout those Appalachians he was particularly well known for the production of a single Vineyard wine called Santo Stefano de which he produced for several decades until around 2011 or so in addition to that special wine giosa also produced a number of other highquality single vineyard barbaresco with fruit that he sourced from the 1960s into the 1990s but once the single Vineyard movement caught on in barbaresco it became increasingly more difficult for giosa to be able to Source fruit from other Growers so at that time he decided to purchase his own Vineyard sources in barbaresco and he got two of the best sources in both isili and rabaya giosa produces both white label and red label versions of its barbaresco the red labels are reserved for the reservas these are extremely special wines that are highly age-worthy and some of the best wines produced in the entire world giosa does not produce the Red Label Reserva barbares goes very frequently however this is so because very few wines are determined to be worthy of being Red Label reservas as such they typically only make the reservas a few times a decade for that reason the reservas are definitely much more expensive and much more rare than the white label bottlings Bruno giosa is definitely considered to be a traditional producer of barbaresco among other things that means that they typically ferment the wine for two to three weeks in stainless steel at moderate temperatures and they also mature the wines in Oak cks for 3 to four years before they’re released I was able to visit giosa last November and learned quite a bit during my visit I was able to taste both the asili and the Raba and I learned that I tend to prefer the asili that wine is incredibly elegant and has some floral notes that I really appreciate Raba was an incredible wine too and that one tends to be a little bit more powerful unfortunately giosa never set aside any of its wines along the way as they are being produced and so they don’t really have much of a library program at all so if you’d like to get back vintages of giocosa wines you’re going to have to do it in the secondary Market it is possible to find some of these wines on store shelves in the United States particularly the white label offerings I’ve seen some 2019 asy for examp example on sale in stores in Texas for a little less than $200 per bottle the Red Label reservas will cost probably double that if you’re able to locate them they’re extremely allocated and not easy to obtain but they are absolutely incredible wines that will be highlights of your wine collection for decades to come should you add them to your seller protator Del barbaresco is one of my all-time favorite producers it’s a Cooperative that has a around 50 members these members collectively control about onethird of The Vineyards in barbaresco which is certainly very impressive while many cooperatives don’t have a reputation for high quality protator absolutely does it helps to ensure high quality for its wines year in and year out through several safeguards first its members are required to sell 100% of their fruit to The Cooperative so they can’t cherry pick and keep their best fruit to bottle it themselves under their own label prices for the fruit sold by the members to The Cooperative are also determined annually and based on quality every year protator Del barbaresco produces its Flagship barbaresco which remains one of the single best values in the entire world of wine in exceptional vintages they also produce reservas and they have nine different single Vineyards from which they produce reservas and these are some of the very best Vineyards in all of barbaresco people oftentimes ask me for some of my favorites and definitely my top three would be aili rabaya Rio sordo and if I had to name a fourth it’s probably ello but you really can’t go wrong with any of them these reservas are absolutely exceptional wines they offer extremely high quality and they sell for around 80 to $90 a bottle they produced them in 2019 so hopefully you can find some on store shelves now if you do a little bit of digging one thing that protator does that I think is really neat as well is that when they produce a Reserva they actually identify the names of the members that produced the fruit that went into that wine and they put that on the back of the label so here for example you can see I have a bottle of the 2013 ell Reserva and on the back they actually list the members names and these are the members Who provided the fruit then went into this one so definitely this is something that the the members think is very important to them and it gives them some recognition which is definitely important since they’re not able to bottle wine under their own name given the requirements of being a member of The Cooperative so the next time you enjoy a protator Del barbaresco Reserva make sure you check out the back of the label in addition to the reservas of course pator also produces its flagship barbaresco as mentioned this is definitely one of the best values in the entire world of wine even though the price is currently around $50 per bottle or so my personal strategy for this wine is to load up on it in top vintages rather than purchasing it every single year you really can’t go wrong purchasing this one every single vintage but I just find that I really like it in the strong vintages and so I back up the truck those years even though I typically only buy about three to four bottles of a particular particular wine for example with 2016 protator I actually bought about two cases of that wine in my opinion the protator Del barbaresco is best with 7 to 10 years of bottle age although in warmer vintages such as the 2020 which is on store shelves now you can enjoy it certainly a little bit earlier than that and it’s also quite enjoyable with an extended decant Kina dear Ro is a small estate that is familyowned and operated this Winery was founded way back in 1948 and released its first Wines in 1952 they have around four acres of Vineyards or around 1.65 hectares of Vineyards and they’re located ideally in Rio sordo they make some outstanding barbaresco but they only produce around 30,000 total bottles a year including all their other wines as well I first discovered this producer back in 2019 during a visit to the winery and I was extremely impressed both with their operations and with the lineup of wines and I’ve been a fan of this producer ever since the Kina dear Ros Vineyards have ideal South and southwestern exposure and are planted at elevations ranging from 240 to 310 m above sea level better still these Vineyards have some underground water sources which is a bit unusual and which also helps to protect their Vines from some of the drought conditions that have existed in recent years in barbaresco they replanted some of their vines in 2004 but they do have some very old vines that date back to the 1950s this is definitely a traditional producer they like to use native yeast for fermentation and they use large slavonian oat casks to mature their wines they don’t use any fining or filtration prior to bottling historically kashina de ro has produced two different Crews from barbaresco TR and sordo I definitely enjoy both of them but my favorite tends to be the Rio sordo I’ve seen them selling for $70 to 80 per bottle in the United States I’ve seen them at Italy for example but definitely shop around as the prices and vintages available definitely vary quite a bit from store to store interestingly they also have access to additional fruit now and they’ll be selling a third crew in the near future this one is the Marco Rino so I’m definitely excited to try that one but it will be produced and sold in very small quantities so you’ll definitely have to move quickly once they release that wine of course you can’t have a barbaresco video without discussing Gaia Gia was founded way back in 1859 and is certainly one of the oldest wineries in the barbaresco docg Angelo Gia the fourth generation took over back in 1961 when he was only 21 years old guy has been known for its Innovation particularly since Angelo took over in the 1960s for example Angelo GA along with Bruno giosa was one of the first producers to start bottling and releasing a single Vineyard wine gaia’s first single Vineyard bottling was from the Sor Vineyard and it was for the 1967 vintage which was released in 1970 in the late 1970s guy was also one of the very first producers in barbaresco to utilize French O BS that are only around 225 L to mature the barbaresco wines rather than the customary old slavonian oak casks that had been used for Generations controversially back in 1996 guia also withdrew its single Vineyard barbaresco such as Sor San Lorenzo and Sor Tilden from the barbaresco docg classification and instead labeled those wines with the much less prestigious langa docc designation this was reportedly due to the fact that guia was unhappy that many people began referring to their Flagship barbaresco as either basic or normali and guy did not want to be known as producing anything that was just regular or basic this change also allowed Gaia to include small percentages of Barbara in these single Vineyard barbaresco wines and that obviously would have been prohibited if they were labeling them as barbaresco docg wines since barbaresco docg has to be 100% nebiolo about 10 to 12 years ago however Gaia stopped labeling these single Ved wines as langa doc wines and removed the Barbara and once again started labeling them as barbaresco docg wines the flagship guia barbaresco is produced from fruit that comes from 14 different Vineyards these Vineyards span a little bit more than 21 hectares Vineyards are planted between 250 and 3 30 m above sea level and the vines average an impressive 40 years of age guia uses sustainable farming methods in its Vineyards in the winery Gaia takes a two-prong attack to the maturation they use the French ool BS for the first year of maturation and then for the second year they’ll revert back to the traditional large slavonian Oak casks the guy barbaresco typically has around 14% alcohol by volume the 2020 vintage is on store shelves now and I’ve seen it selling for around $260 per bottle but I also saw some places selling it for well over $300 a bottle so definitely shop around for this one one of my best all-time experiences with a guy at barbaresco was with the legendary 1964 bottling despite its age this bottle was still in excellent condition and showing extremely well while I hear some people complain that Gaia is overpriced and overrated in my my view I think these wines typically just need a substantial amount of time to distinguish themselves and show their best in many instances 25 years or more so for that reason I typically don’t buy them on release but will instead look for back vintages that I can get good deals on here and there this approach also tends to work quite well because historic pricing was much lower than current release pricing and so it’s often possible to get some back vintages of Dia barbaresco with a substantial amount of age on it for not much more than you’ll spend for a much more recent release if it makes you happy to drink gyab barbaresco on release or within a few years thereafter by all means do it but in my view I think if you’re going to open it within the first 5 to seven years after the release you’re definitely better off buying something like a protator doll barbaresco that sells for a fraction of the cost and which doesn’t require decades before it reaches its peak as mentioned about 10 to 12 years ago guy also began producing single vineard barbaresco again and it has three of them Sor San Lorenzo Sor tiine and Costa rusi these will typically set you back at least $800 per bottle if not more guy did not produce any of the single Vineyard barbaresco in 2019 because these Vineyards were still suffering from repercussions from a hail storm that occurred in 2018 as with the flagship guy barbaresco it’s often possible to buy back vintages of the single Vineyard barbaresco for much less than the current pricing this is also a good idea because these single Vineyard barbaresco require even more age than the flagship barbaresco last year for example I tasted the 2000 Gia Sor San Lorenzo and it was absolutely incredible but it was also still very youthful and nowhere near its peak in fact I would guess it would probably take another 10 years or so before it would reach its apex so you’ll definitely need a lot of patience if you want to buy one of these single Vineyard barbares go on release and enjoy it at its peak if you enjoyed this video and you want to see my companion video on the barola region and my favorite seven producers from that region please be sure to check out this video that’s linked above