Alfio Cavallotto, with whom I visited last week and whose wines are the subject of the previous post, was back in town the Thursday before the holidays. We met with his importer at Sushi Sasa in downtown Denver for lunch. Funny - my fist meeting with Alfio was several years ago when our mutual friend Silvia Altare decided we were all going to drive to Liguria from Barolo for a dinner of ... drumroll please ... raw fish. In the coastal areas of Italy, fish is often served uncooked, just dressed with a bit of olive oil and salt, and sometimes a bit of lemon juice. The restaurant, Buco di Bacco in Pietre Ligure, was fabulous, not least of which was the amazing list of champagne, as well as the owner, who sized us up the moment we walked in and then brought us, without consulting anyone in the group, the bottle of Champagne he thought we would enjoy the most. It was a great meal - the antipasti of raw and slightly cooked seafood and fish ran to about 15 plates, and so we just split a single pasta afterwards and skipped the secondi entirely. In any case, Alfio was great company at that dinner, and we've kept up contact since. He's a most interesting and really intelligent guy - I like people who, when they decide they are interested in something, dive into the deep end, head first. He's like that.
Interestingly, his red wines went well with the sashimi and sushi. The same wines were poured as at Radda, but this time, the Dolcetto showed much better - brighter fruit, depth and length. Really nice. For the other wines, tasting notes were consistent.
Cavallotto's winemaking is an interesting amalgam of both modern and traditional methods. Walking into the winery the first time several years ago, I was stuck by the big Slavonian chestnut botti, the lack of barrique, and the resulting style of the wines ... until I spied the row of rotofermentors in the vinification room. Mon Dieu! Quelle Surprise! Alfio explained that they still do a 15-35 day maceration for the must, but using rotofermentors allows better control of the pip tannins. As with almost every estate in Piedmont now, the grapes are destemmed to minimize the stalk tannins, which in Nebbiolo are particularly potent and astringent, and rarely, if ever, as ripe as the skin and pip tannins. After the fermentation, the winemaking style is resolutely trad: for the Barolo, 2-4 years in the enormous botti, then bottle ageing for a year or two. The wines are classically styled, with acid and ripe tannin giving a particularly elegant structure to the wines. The fruit is present and in balance but never in a forward or showoffy way. The wines reflect what I consider to be the house style of impeccable structure, good balance and elegance before flash. As such, they are underappreciated in the marketplace and can usually be found at a considerably lower price than many other Barolo. I tasted a barrel sample of the 2004 Barolo Bricco Boschis, Riserva San Giuseppe in November 2009 in La Morra and found it to be lovely, long and sweet, with good cherry and violet aspects, very ripe and long, needing 5-8 years to fully pull together but certain to enjoy a drinking window of a further 15 years (I scored it 4.0+). The 2004 Barolo Bricco Boschis, Riserva Vignolo was slightly tighter and more tannic, with good fruit but extremely closed at this point (3.5+). Both are lovely wines that have a long life ahead of them.
The big surprise with the sushi was the 2005 Barbera Bricco Boschis, Vigna del Cuculo. I would never have thought that a 4 year old Barbera would be this delicious and complementary, especially with the shushi that had a strong umami aspect, like the Uni. This Barbera deserves mention for the layered complexity that really lets the grape shine through - many ambitious Barbera are now aged in new French oak barrels, which layers on flavors of chocolate, vanilla and coffee (delicious, by the way) - but this one lets the earthiness and minerality of the grape shine though. Nice job.
Everyone is waiting for the fruit to ripen and the harvest to really get started. Luciano and Luca seem nervous, almost. Luciano tells me that last year, the final grapes arrived at the winery on October 2. This year, we’ve barely gotten 15% of them in by the same date. The worry is that everything is going to ripen and be ready to pick at the same time. Generally, the nights have been very cool (I’ve been wearing pj’s to keep warm) and the days almost hot – perfect for the Nebbiolo. Still, things are not ripening quickly enough. The morning is spent moving pallets, packing shipments, busy, busy, busy … but I feel like some alone time so I start on cleaning the crush pad at 8.30. This is a big job, and some of the grapes that arrived last night were truly terrible, awful grapes – one was a variety called “Blood of Judas” – a minor Tuscan grape that is added to jug wine for color. It throws off so much tartrate and color that the stuff is literally coated all over the destemmer. Blood of Judas is one of the few varieties of grape to have red juice, so after eating a few last night – tart, bitter, tannic and not really pleasant – my tongue is stained blackish-red. Andrea, Christian, Ivan and Luciano think this is hilarious ...
The day dawns foggy – very typical given the temperature variation that is common here in autumn. The harvest begins today in Valmaggiore for Nebbiolo. VM is in the Roero, an area north of Barolo, on the other side of the Tanaro River, past Alba. I drive out with Luciano for a few hours of picking in the afternoon – it is bright and sunny and hot up here, as opposed to the chill in the air around Barolo. Most of the rest of the winery crew has been out here since before 8am. The geology changes completely here – the soils are all sand. Luciano and I talk about the differences between the two areas on the 25-minute ride over. Driving up to the top of the vineyard on a single-lane dirt road is a challenge – the truck keeps slipping around in the sand. Kinda like driving at dunes … really. 
Friday Andrea and I begin moving the barrels of last year's wine out of the first ageing cellar (which will be warmed up for the malolactic fermentation) to the main ageing cellar. We use an electric forklift and I manage to get enormous splinters in the side of my calf as I brush past the rough wooden beans on which the barrels rest. As the week has gone so swimmingly well so far, I decide to ignore them. There will not be another fuss around the new guy!!! Later, back at my apartment that evening, it takes 45 minutes to get them out. Though they didn't go deep, the longest one is a half-inch long and as big around as a knitting needle. All I have is a pair of tonenail clippers and a stubborn streak. Finally they are out and I am in bed and asleep by 9.30.
As soon as I arrive at 7.30, I am in the emptied tank, shoveling out pomace, while Luciano transfers it into the big basket presses. Good thing the fermentations are slowing down and that the O2 levels are much better – I am not nearly out of breath, even in the huge tank. 
(Yes, my hair is getting long, and yes, it gets really curly and wild when it is damp like in a tank.) After shoveling everything out, we roll the baskets out to the hydraulic press. The liquid from a first gentle press is combined with the free-run juice. The second press, at 200 bar, is vinified separately and the resulting wine (harder and more tannic than the regular wine) is sold off to some old guys, bulk customers who bring their own demijohns to the winery to be filled. All day is shovel, fill baskets, press, dump pomace, clean baskets … repeat. A tank of wine yields 3-4 baskets of pomace, so this is a long and slow process, as each press takes about 2 hours. We finish up after lunch. 
Luciano shoveling the pomace out of the tanks. For a guy in his sixties, he is in incredible shape. He has the easy efficiency of someone who has been performing the same actions for a long time - a complete professional in every sense of the word. For example, when shoveling pomace, I manage to get bits of grape everywhere, while the mess on the floor when Luciano is shoveling is ... almost nothing. This pisses me off. I've shoveled plenty, and I should be doing better. By the end of the day, I am definitely neater. there are little tricks that I pick up by watching him carefully.
The basket lifted off the plug of solids after pressing. The solids go off to a grappa distillery. Every few days, a truck comes by and picks up the pomace for the Marolo distillery. In the meantime, the stuff is outside, covered, in the shade ... I remember that Poli, in the Veneto, picks up and distills his pomace the day it is pressed so that nothing can oxidize and give off-flavors to the grappa. This stuff will not be at that quality level, unfortunately. I've had Marolo grappas and they have a bit of the fire in the throat feeling that I find so off-putting.
Andrea cleaning the baskets after pressing. You have to scrape the remaining stuff out of the inside of the baskets so that the juice can flow freely during the next use. 
Off to Cuneo, a charming old village about and hour’s drive from Monforte, for a tasting with Lucia and Elio Altare. I drive with Duncan, the wicked cool Australian who is working for the Altares for the month (he’s a winemaker near Melbourne) and the fancy-schmantzy place in the center of town has some crazy cellars underneath it. As a connoisseur of restaurant kitchens, I find this one quite nice – all induction cooktops, loads of stainless, and everything spotless. Still, I am tired and sore after a full day of picking, cleaning and scrubbing and what would have been an incredible opportunity during the March tasting trip feels somehow, a bit out of place now. 
2004 Altare, “Insieme” IGT Langhe
