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 ...
More Valmaggiore Nebbiolo arrived at the winery last night, late. This morning, I overslept and by the time I get to the winery at 8.15 the crush has been going for over an hour. Nebbiolo has much lighter juice than Dolcetto, and the must is a grayish-pink color. The first part of today’s master class is a lecture on color extraction in Nebbiolo – there are two factors here – temperature and alcohol, both of which help the juice extract the color form the skins. For the next hour, while the must is pouring in, I get the discussing on the chemistry of color extraction. Amazing stuff, and I’ve been sworn to secrecy. One thing that I can reveal: Luciano heats the must to help extract color before the fermentation starts, a process also used by Beaucastel in the Rhône Valley. In any case, the juice looks and smells great, and I help on the sorting table for the next hour – completely besplattered with Nebbiolo juice by the end.
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. 
