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The Art of Living
52
arTonThepalaTe
Provenance can
add a premium to
wine prices. A
six-bottle lot of
1978 Barolo
Monfortino
Riserva Speciale
Giacomo Conterno
sold for $14,400
at Zachys’s
November 2009
sale of vintages
from the storied
Big Guy Collection.
King of Italian Reds
In many ways comparable to Burgundy, the complex wines made around the Piedmontese
hamlet of Barolo are finding a growing fan base among collectors
Italy’s magnificent red, Barolo, is coming of age—not that it wasn’t well known in
the past. The earliest Barolo dates back to the end of the 18th century. However, a
string of excellent vintages and a vast improvement in viticulture and winemaking in
the last two decades have created more great wine producers and more great wines.
“We make much more friendly wines than we did 20 or 30 years ago,” admits
Paolo Damilano, whose family—the biggest producer from the area’s top vineyard,
Cannubi—makes excellent Barolos under their name. “Our Barolos are much more
approachable and drinkable when young. They are more like Burgundy.”
“Piedmont is one of Europe’s greatest wine regions,” says John Kapon, CEO of
Acker Merrall & Condit, the oldest wine merchant in the U.S., “and great Barolos are
unique and special wines, on par with the top French wines.” Yet the market is only
beginning to reflect this, and so the wines remain affordable—for now. “Burgundy
is the second largest wine market after Bordeaux but growing quite significantly,”
notes Jeff Zacharia, president of wine auctioneer Zachys, in Scarsdale, New
York. Given that Barolo is “growing but is starting from a much lower point than
Burgundy,” there has never been a better time to buy, drink, and collect it.
VILLAGES AND VINEYARDS
“Barolo can be complicated to know and
understand,” Kapon says. “There are so
many great vineyards and winemakers.
They are unique and special, and collectors
worldwide recognize this.” There are many
parallels between Barolo and Burgundy.
One of the most obvious is the importance
of villages and single vineyards. Besides
Barolo itself, the wine’s top towns include
La Morra, Serralunga, and Monforte d’Alba.
Furthermore, each village, whether in Barolo
or Burgundy, has particular vineyard sites
that grow the highest quality grapes and
produce the best wines. Most top Barolos
AUCTIONS
carry single-vineyard designations on their
labels, such as Brunate or Cannubi. The
WINE
French have codified this into an appellation
system. Barolo has no official vineyard ZACHY’S
MARCH/APRIL 2013 | BLOUINArtinfo.comAsiA
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: ACKER MERRALL & CONDIT; BARTOLO MASCARELLO; GAJA; BRUNO GIACOSA
ranking, but such vineyards as Brunate near
La Morra and Cannubi in Barolo have long
been considered the region’s finest. “There
are many excellent small vineyards for Barolo
but the very best are well known,” says
Bruno Ceretto, whose family is a top producer
of Barolo and other wines of the region.
“We are lucky enough to own parts of many
of them including Cannubi and Rocche.”
TOP WINERIES
A number of wineries and growers may
share ownership of a vineyard. The vineyard
of Cannubi, for instance, has almost twodozen
individual grape growers and almost
as many different wine producers using the
name. Granted, nothing is as complicated
as Burgundy, with such appellations as Clos
Vougeot, which includes almost 70 different
owners, but Barolo has similar complexity
that takes some time to understand. For
those new to collecting, it is easier to focus
on the best producers with long reputations
for making top wines. Some excellent
wineries to consider that are readily available
are Ceretto, Pio Cesare, Aldo Conterno,
Giacomo Conterno, Bruno Giacosa, Luciano
Sandrone, Paolo Scavino, and Roberto
Voerzio. Angelo Gaja is also a great producer
of reds from the Barolo area, but the winery
labels its best wines under the appellation
Langhe Doc. His two top wines from the
area are Conteisa and Sperss.
VINTAGES TO WATCH FOR
Choosing the best vintages in Barolo is less
difficult. Every year after 1995 is outstanding.
In fact, Barolo hasn’t had a poor vintage
overall since 2002. “Barolo has had so many
excellent vintages in the last 15 years that
it’s almost a problem,” admits Matteo Einaudi
of Luigi Einaudi, whose Cannubi Barolo
BLOUINArtinfo.comAsiA | MARCH/APRIL 2013
is top-tier. I am a fan of warmer, sunnier
vintages that produce rounder textured and
richer Barolos. These years include 1997,
2000, and 2007. I also like sunny, fresh, and
late grape-growing seasons that make more
balanced wines. These vintages include 1996,
1998, and 2008. Colder years produce more
tannic wines, as in 1999 and 2006, which
need more bottle age to soften and become
drinkable. Older vintages to keep an eye out
for are: 1978, 1982, 1985, 1989, and 1990.
These show how Barolo ages wonderfully and
approaches great Burgundy as it matures.
A GROWING AUDIENCE
“Italy has done a great job marketing
itself as a brand throughout Asia for style,
fashion, wine, and food,” Kapon says.
“Italian wines, and Barolo specifically, are
among the beneficiaries. Our collectors
in Hong Kong want to add the top Barolo
producers to their collections, older and
more recent vintages alike.” Both Kapon
and Zacharia, however, note that the
U.S. market has been growing consistently
for more than five years and that South
American collectors have also been laying
in Barolos recently. “Demand for Barolo is
becoming increasingly global,” says Kapon.
THE ALLURE OF PROVENANCE
The top names for collectors and
investors in Barolos (not including Gaja
because technically it doesn’t make one)
are: Aldo Conterno, Giacomo Conterno,
Bruno Giacosa, Bartolo Mascarello, and
Roberto Voerzio. When buying at auction,
provenance—as well as winery and vintage—
can be a factor. “Owing to Barolo’s not being
widely collected in the U.S. before the late
1990s,” Zacharia says, “Barolo rarities tend
to appear as part of truly great cellars that
were amassed over decades, rather than
a case here, a case there showing up at
auction.” Bottles from such collections are
likely to fetch higher prices than ones with
lesser-known backgrounds. For example, the
highest price Zachys has ever realized for a
single bottle of Barolo Monfortino Riserva
Speciale Giacomo Conterno 1961 was $1,680
in November 2009. It was auctioned as part
of the Big Guy Collection, an extraordinarily
strong group that spanned several auctions.
Since that time, bottles of the same wine
have earned from as low as around $650 to
as high as $1,220, but have never achieved
quite the same price. — JAMES SUCKLING
All in the Details
+ The Accademia del Barolo, comprising
14 producers who work together to promote
Barolo appreciation worldwide, holds
events and auctions at least twice yearly, in
Europe, Asia, and North America.
+ Be careful when purchasing older vintages.
Many ancient bottles of Barolo have not
been stored properly, particularly those
under the Gaja and Giacomo Conterno
From left:
An enormous
bottle of a great
Barolo, the 1952
Giacomo Conterno
Monfortino,
fetched $24,200
in April 2008, the
highest price paid
for a bottle of
Barolo at an Acker
Merrall & Condit
auction. That price
was an anomaly
because it was
such an unusually
large bottle—13.5
liters, more than
an entire case
of wine in a single
bottle—a size
rarely made these
days. Among
the best regarded
winemakers and
most sought after
estates of the
region are Bruno
Giacosa, Angelo
Gaja, and Bartolo
Mascarello.
labels. Nonetheless, I have recently
drunk amazing old bottles of Giacomo
Conterno Monfortino Riserva from the
1960s and 1950s.
+ Older vintages, whose age brings out
similarities to Burgundy, include 1978, 1982,
1985, 1989, and 1990.
+ For more information go to jamessuckling.com
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