Dolcetto and Barbera

jochems · Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 8:07 pm Post subject: Dolcetto and Barbera

Dear Andrea,

Welcome back! I much appreciate the time you are willing to spend on this forum.

I love Nebbiolo based wines. Including your Barbaresco's. The '04 Pajoré I had recently was excellent. But I consumed it way to early Sad

Now I have to buy some more Very Happy

On to the subject of this topic: Dolcetto and Barbera.
I am under the impression that there is a notable increase in quality of wines based on these grapes. In particular the concentration and structure seems to be improving.

Do you share this opinion? If so, what is the background for this?

Albert Jochems
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Life is to short to drink bad wines.

Andrea Sottimano · Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 9:11 am Post subject:

Dear Albert,

thanks for your question; you're right about Dolcetto and Barbera, they are not at all what they used to be 30 years ago!

You know, I remember when I begun to move into the wine, Dolcetto and Barbera were considerated wines easy, for everyday, sometimes diluited and with no appeal.

All the efforts we(and all the producers in this area)did were finalized to one deal: bring back these wines to the prestigious position they had in the past.
Most important was to leave these grapes only in the best places, and to avoid that exposures and soils that were good only for producing huge quantity.
Than, next step was to reduce the yelds, and to avoid any technics in the cellar that could change the natural expression of the wines.

The results?As you said now the wines Dolcetto and Barbera are not only far more concentrated, structured and with more age potential but, and this was our real deal, they all still possess the natural and typical of the grapes elegance and balance.

About 2004...well that's a great vintage, give it another 2-3 years, then for 25 years it will be great!

Ciao, Andrea