Arrival, Wednesday
On the plane, Boston > JFK > Milan. My first trip to Piemonte. Not my first trip to Italy. During college I spent a semester in Florence, venturing to Rome, Lazio, Campania, wending my way down to Capo Rizzuto, in Calabria, in a tiny car with friends. Later I visited Veneto, Trentino, Emilia Romagna, Umbria, Marche, Abruzzo, Apulia, Basilicata, Sicily. Not Sardegna, Liguria, Valle d’Aosta, Molise, Lombardia or, to the point at hand, Piemonte.
What did I want from this visit? People, profiles, portraits. A lay of the land, physical and metaphorical. Nebbiolo’s essence. Barolo versus Barbaresco. Sparkling, white, pink — will there be any, or just a lake of red, red, red?”
I’d received the invitation to January’s “Nebbiolo Prima Academy” last fall. It promised four days of discovery and learning, a chance to taste, meet producers, see the territory. Events were sponsored by the Albeisa Consorzio, which promotes Langhe wines in part by getting producers to use an historic regional bottle, slope-shouldered, chunkier than Burgundy glass but not as wonky as Gattinara, with ALBEISA embossed around the neck. The idea was to resuscitate an icon and build awareness of Alba as a heartland of wine.
Recently more information about the tour had been trickling in. Our days would start with lectures and formal tastings. After lunch, excursions: on the first two days, two wine producers, and on the third a pruning exercise. Dinners would be in Alba, walkably close to the hotel where we were staying. It seemed busy but manageable.
As the plane rushed toward morning, I roused myself and pulled open my shade. Thick clouds undulated below, pinkish wisps rising wraithlike from the foam in the early light. I could see mountains off the right wing. The Pyrenees, because weren’t we heading south? But the flight tracker showed us heading east, over Paris, then Dijon, toward the mountain range that was not in fact French-Basque-Catalonian but French-Swiss-Italian. The Alps.
Soon the clouds dissipated and the mountains tumbled into view. Even from 36,000 feet, their mass was astonishing. Trees marched up their slopes until they could march no more, dissolving into rock and ice. The Alps are vast and bleak and enormous, impossible, unclimbable, unmappable, unnamable, so of course we have climbed and mapped and named them all. We turned south and zipped through a gap in the ridgeline, Lake Lugano suddenly below, a shiny plate fringed with resorts glittering like rhinestones. Soon we were descending, the peaks close like a helicopter ride. Then they were behind us before we circled past Milan and turned again to land against the Alpine curtain.
The drive from Milan to Alba is flat, industrial at first, agricultural later, carpeted with rice fields, their stubble grayed and spiky in the fallow season. They are ribboned with canals, and here and there was standing water from winter rains, reminders of the irrigation that has allowed rice to flourish here for a millennium. Agricultural buildings, new and antique, dotted the plain.
As we passed Alessandria, a thin wave of fog was cresting the foothills like sea spray over rocks, spilling over farmland, swallowing trees, towers, electric lines. We entered a tunnel and on the other side the cover was complete, the sky like watery milk. Air thickening into the distance, solitary trees punctuating farm fields receding into the shroud. Mother’s milk, mother’s fog: Nebbia. For Nebbiolo.
I arrived at the hotel in late morning. Mercifully my room was ready. I hung my blouses in the bathroom, spritzed them with water to smooth their travel worries, arranged my electronics on the desk, connected to the Wi-Fi, took a shower, and ventured down to the hotel restaurant for lunch. I chose tajarin al ragù and salad and was swiftly presented with a perfect knot of perfect pasta tossed in perfect sauce, dry and meaty, and a plate of crunchy greens with actually-ripe-in-January cherry tomatoes, which I dressed with murky oil, balsamic, and salt. After, a caffè I’d dithered about but ordered anyway. I would probably still sleep this afternoon. Sleep to shrug off the overnight no-sleep flight. Sleep before chaos breaks.
Evening, hotel lobby, members of our group started coming into view. There were fifteen of us, including five Americans. We shook hands all around and met the team from the PR firm coordinating the tour.
The head organizer and I exited to wait for the shuttle to dinner, the damp winter sky growing indigo. “You look fresh as a daisy,” she said. “Did you rest?”
“It’s just makeup,” I said. But I had, in fact, slept, and I was looking forward to the reception. Still, I was grateful the venue was a short walk from the hotel so I could leave whenever I wanted.
She and I had had an email exchange the previous week that was left unresolved. She’d sent out list of 176 wines for the formal tasting, and it had been blinded, showing only vintage, region, and typology, a fancy way to say appellation or locality.
Formal tastings aren’t my favorite, largely because that’s not how wines are enjoyed in the wild: socially, with food. Blind tasting pushes the exercise even further from wine’s natural context. Plus, with 176 wines, I wanted to do some advance research on the producers and also give myself the option of tasting only those that fit my editorial curiosity.
I’d asked for an unblinded list with producer names and other identifiers, but she said she couldn’t provide one. As we stood in the drizzle awaiting the shuttle, we took up the topic again. “It’s really about context,” I said. “The more information I have, the more it helps me make connections as I’m tasting.”
“I understand, and I hear what you’re saying,” she said. “I’m sorry no one told you beforehand that it would be blind. But we will give you the full list right after tasting, each day.”
I wasn’t opposed to others tasting blind. Some people prefer it as it eliminates any whiff of bias. But I didn’t understand why everyone had to taste this way if they preferred not to.
After a bit more back and forth, she drew a breath, perhaps realizing she had to show her hand. “Last year, the first year we did this event, we had a walk-around tasting, not blind. Some producers complained that journalists avoided their table and went straight to the big names. So, this year we need to prevent that.”
“That’s sad,” I said. “On the other hand, I’ve seen it work in producers’ favor. Like, ‘Hey, check out those guys. Their wines are incredible!’”
Still, she shook her head. We would all taste blind.
The shuttle wound through Alba’s sometimes one-way streets toward the headquarters of the Albeisa Consorzio, which sits on a square ringed with stuccoed palazzos and anchored by an old church. Journalists and producers were arriving by foot and vehicle, dropping coats in a corner and accepting a glass of sparkling Nebbiolo. The venue had a tasting bar, lecture hall, and glass-walled display room showcasing hundreds of diverse wines in that Albeisa bottle. The director of the consortium offered welcome remarks.
I recognized several journalist colleagues, and as we chatted and caught up, we helped ourselves to small plates of local specialties, like beef tartare, giardiniera, spinach flan, and a cold, mushy blend of potato, pea, and carrot called insalata russa. These snacks and wine, we soon realized, would constitute dinner, so an hour later, tired but genuinely happy to be there, I walked back to the hotel, to bed.
Day One, Thursday
After breakfast, we settled ourselves at tables in the Albeisa lecture hall in the basement of the headquarters. At each place were five glasses, plus napkin, water bottle, dump bucket, and a sheaf of grissini, the neutral, oily breadsticks that serve as palate cleanser.
We were welcomed by the heads of the consortiums of Barolo and Barbaresco and of Roero before a lecture on Langhe wine production and economics by agronomist Emanuele Coralia. All of this was delivered in Italian, so an interpreter was parked in a corner of the room, whispering into a broadcast device that beamed English translation into our earpieces.
Then, the first formal tasting began. There were 56 wines on deck that day, principally 2022 Roero and Barbaresco, plus a tranche of 2021 Barolos.
The bottles had been shrouded in black sleeves and numbered to match the tasting list. A team of sommeliers smoothly plied the room, managing the wines and refilling our emptied glasses.
Fifty-six wines is a lot to taste in one seating, but we had three hours and could work at our own pace. I stepped my way through these young wines, their tannin and acidity rasping my palate. The Roero and Barbaresco wines were kindred, with flavors like cranberry, with all of that fruit’s tart acidity and grippy texture. Some wines added red plum or, in a lighter style, strawberry. They also had a sense of greenery, something like juniper or cedar wood, forest floor. All were drying, the tannins tightly wound.
A few wines had apparently been aged in newer and smaller cooperage, which added flavors of oak and caramel but gave them a more approachable texture. It was a striking example of the classic debate, which arose in the 1990s, in Piemonte generally and Barolo specifically: to age Nebbiolo in the traditional style (in big old acacia casks) or the modern style (in newer oak barrels)?
I paused occasionally for water or a snap of breadstick. I knew the afternoon would be easier, because we were to visit just two producers. I was excited about the excursions because it would be our chance to escape the lecture hall and discover the vineyards. It was winter, rainy, cold, and damp, the vines in slumber, but these field trips are crucial to understanding the territory. I wrapped the tasting portion in about two hours, so I had time to make a roundtrip back to the hotel to drop my iPad and grab wet-weather gear.
After lunch at the headquarters, the organizers split us into two groups, each mounting a bus for one of the two producers. Midway through the afternoon we would swap places. My van’s first stop was Cà del Baio, a winery in Treiso. Federica Grasso, a fifth-generation family member, who with her sisters, Valentina and Paola, runs the estate, led us on a brief tour of the facility. There wasn’t time to visit vineyards, she said, and anyway it was cold and wet outside.
When we arrived at their tasting room, the true scope of the event came into focus. A crowd of neighboring producers had assembled, fifteen in all, asked to provide one or two bottles, no more than three. So of course they’d each brought three.
Valentina and her helpers broke our group into pairs or trios, ushering us to small tables and announcing the plan. Winemakers would visit each table to pour their wines and discuss their estate. Journalists would taste, ask questions, and make notes. After six minutes, a bell would signal times-up and the producers would rotate to the next table. It was, essentially, a speed tasting, which is not unlike speed dating except with purple teeth.
The room sprang alive. My notebook filled with scrawl as I raced to jot names and vintages, appellations, tasting impressions, answers to my hurried questions, then grab a photo as a mnemonic. I’d been paired with a good colleague, someone I’ve known for years and who knows these wines well. That proved a blessing, because while he was talking I could write, and vice versa, the two of us playing off one another companionably in the rush to discover the wines.
“Time’s up!” Could that have been only six minutes? There was a hustle as producers swapped places and we turned the pages of our notebooks.
It’s not uncommon for a single winery to host peers for a large tasting, but often the roles are reversed: producers park themselves while journalists circulate. This is likely the format the organizers followed last year, which evidently didn’t work for the producers. But even though it’s clumsy having to juggle paraphernalia (glass, camera, notebook or tablet) I prefer this to speed tasting, because I can work at my own pace, lingering with producers who have something especially compelling to say and moving more swiftly with others. I can also take breaks when I need them.
After an hour or so, on the ninth or tenth producer, I started to flag. I’d suspected this setup would be difficult for me, loud and chaotic, although I’d been game to give it a shot. But I could feel my attention eroding, abraded by commotion as much as wine. I had been spitting all day, but some alcohol does get through the soft palate, and I was nearing my ninetieth wine. I was not inebriated, but my jetlagged body was working hard against the tide.
I excused myself to the bathroom, skipping one producer entirely. I looked in the mirror. I was ashen, fighting toxins and fatigue. I felt like I was being slowly poisoned. “I can’t do this,” I said aloud to the cold room. “Why am I doing this to myself?” I leaned on the porcelain, splashed my face, took a deep breath, and turned the question around. “Why are they doing this to us?”
I emerged and walked up to one of the PR team. “I’m sorry, but there’s a limit to the amount I can taste in one day. I need to stop.”
She looked stunned. “Um, okay,” she hesitated. “Maybe you can still meet with the wineries and not taste?”
I agreed to this and returned to my table, unsure how it could work. Sniff the wine and try to hide that I wasn’t sipping, so as not to insult? I was certain I needed a break, but it was a delicate predicament, with cultural overlays, to boot. Press trips have unspoken rules of engagement. Everyone is cordial and assumes good will, but the roles are blurry, because the exchange is fundamentally transactional.
Here’s how it works. A host, frequently a wine brand, consortium, or region, puts together an itinerary, collaborating with their in-house press relations team or a contracted agency with a deep Rolodex. They select journalists, often a mix of freelancers and staff writers, and issue invitations. They offer to cover expenses for travel, accommodation, meals, and local transportation for the tour, although some of these costs are often substantially offset by governments or NGOs. The host’s goal is to earn favorable editorial coverage in markets of interest, which will raise the profile of a wine, winery, and wine region, and translate to increased sales.
Journalists accept the invitation and prepare by doing advance research and soft-pitching editors their anticipated storylines. Most editors won’t commit at that point, unless they’ve worked with that person extensively, it’s an event the person has covered repeatedly, or it’s a situation so compelling (They’re growing grapes on Mars!) that an editor can’t refuse. Sometimes they signal provisional interest and ask to see a pitch once the journalist finds a story. Some publications have strict policies forbidding stories resulting from press trips, samples, dinners, and gifts, so that editor would deliver an automatic No.
Although the host fronts most of the costs, journalists do rack up expenses. Principal among them is a soft cost, time, as itineraries packed from breakfast to midnight afford little opportunity to keep up with other projects. It’s hard to find time even for email and catch-ups with loved ones. A journalist’s hard expenses include transport to and from home airports, seat selections, checked bags, airport food, roaming charges, tips, and unavoidable sundries. Some must cover childcare or pet sitting when they’re gone. It’s not uncommon for my direct costs to float to $300 to $400 for a weeklong trip.
In this complex social-cultural phenomenon, a journalist falls somewhere between guest and client, and a producer falls somewhere between host and boss. The press relations team, meanwhile, is a third player, a facilitator but one that principally represents the host. And since the host is their customer, the journalist can start to feel like a product.
The assumption that everyone benefits commercially. Hosts and PR firms probably do make money from the exercise, because otherwise they wouldn’t keep doing it. But for journalists there’s no guarantee. In the old days, meaning a decade or two ago, a freelance writer could make back far more than their investments (time plus cash) by selling stories from a tour. Now, with publications rarely paying more than $500 for a freelance feature, the math seldom pencils out. That means that freelance journalists who do take press trips are often reliant on other income sources, like a full-time job, spouse who carries the household, or a mix of side-hustles requiring late-night juggling over sketchy Wi-Fi to keep projects moving.
Another unspoken rule of press trips is that a journalist never breaks the fourth wall. Apart from a good-faith disclosure about who has covered expenses, the transactional aspects are never mentioned. A writer critiques the wines but not the experience, eliding not only the press trip’s machinations but also their personal experience and sensibilities. The longer I write about wine, the more impoverished this approach feels to me. Wine is subjective, and the taster plays a role in the drama as a witness to the truth of the product, its maker, and its place. I matter, too.
The final bell rang: 15 producers, 45 wines. Journalists rose and eyed each other grimly. And then we learned we were heading to the next winery, where we would do it all again.
On the van ride to Round Two we fell into a morass of grumbling. At the second venue, Adriano, I tried to focus, but my nervous system was frazzled. After only a few producers I began to feel lightheaded and woozy, overstimulated by the volume of wine and data flooding the zone. I needed to stop pretending to taste, pretending to pay attention, and shift into self-preservation mode. I felt terrible about abandoning my tasting companion, but I excused myself, rose from the table, and spent the rest of the tasting wandering around the room. In retrospect, I realize I was also starving. It had been six hours since lunch.
When it was over, our flagging group boarded the van.
“That was intense.” someone said.
“Too much,” said another.
“I’ve never flunked out of a tasting before,” I said, “but I had to stop.”
“I hope tomorrow is different.”
“Don’t count on it,” I said. “We have to ask the organizers. Someone please ask the organizers?” I didn’t want to have been the only one registering a complaint. The crank. The American crank.
We settled into dark silence as headlights sliced the night.
“Urgh,” I groaned. “I’ll never drink wine again.”
At least we could still laugh.
We had a few minutes at the hotel before we had to depart again for dinner. I chugged some water and ate some of the hazelnuts that had been tucked into our welcome bags. Their salt stung my withered tongue. What I needed was hot food, hot bath, and bed. I had a short video call with my husband and pish-pished my cat on screen. Home seemed so remote, so domestic, so — sane.
My dinner reservation was for 8.30 p.m., with two fellow journalists and four producers. The car dropped us at La Libera, a restaurant in Alba celebrated for its interpretations of regional cuisine. Two of the winemakers had been at the speed tastings that day, repeating their spiels a dozen times or more. But they’d had free time when they weren’t rotated in, which gave them a chance to taste each other’s wines and kvetch about the weather, both meteorological and political.
“Are you tired?” one asked. I smiled, but my body was vibrating with fatigue. I reached for bread and water as menus got handed around. Our group ordered, we waited. I reached for more bread, more water. Wine was poured. Presently, a small amuse-bouche arrived, was devoured, the plates swept away. More bread.
Each producer had brought a single wine, which I sniffed and swirled but did not swallow. This was tragic and sad, because here at last was wine in its intended context: the table. And the wines were superb.
I especially admired a Dolcetto di Diano d’Alba called Garabei from Abrigo Giovanni. It was deep purple, concentrated, redolent of violets, anise, and licorice, with singing acidity. It made a concise argument against Dolcetto as an easy quaff. Giulio Abrigo, who works with his brother and parents at the winery, was seated across the table. He has a slight build and pale features, with a steel-green eyes and a mop of black curls. He said his family also produces Nebbiolo, Barbera, Favorita, and Arneis, but Dolcetto from this site is their top wine. “Dolcetto is a simple wine, but in some cases can tell a story,” he said. “We don’t want to make something strange, rude, loud. We look for simplicity and balance.”
It’s also a tannic grape, so they’re judicious about skin contact during the first days of fermentation, to keep the wine from earning too much structure. “We work a lot in the cellar, but actually we don’t have too much technology,” he said. This wine ages in concrete, not wood. “With this vineyard, it’s the ripening that makes the difference. It’s a rich wine, but with incredible drinkability,” he said. “Dolcetto needs to be on the table.”
I kept upright through the courses as the clock crawled toward 11:30. One of the journalists at the table also makes wine, and by then he and the producers were engaged in spirited technical discussion. I felt myself wilting and rose from the table, apologizing for leaving so early. I pulled on my winter coat and hat and stepped into the dark streets of Alba. The walk back to the hotel took twelve minutes. Twelve minutes later I was asleep.
Day Two, Friday
Journalists filtered into the hotel’s breakfast room. Some seated themselves apart, poring over laptops to catch up on work in other time zones. Others clustered in twos or threes, filling plates at the buffet and ordering espresso drinks from servers. We compared notes and steadied ourselves for the day ahead.
“I found some nice wines in yesterday’s seated tasting,” I said to my tablemates, “but I haven’t had time to look at the unblinded list, so I have no clue what they are.”
“Me too!” another said. “I hate tasting blind. I asked for an unblinded list last week but couldn’t get one.”
“Same here,” I said. “If this afternoon’s a repeat of yesterday, I’m going to have to pick and choose, and I’d rather not miss something important.”
“I can go either way, but I’d rather have the choice,” said another, then turned to me: “Do you do competitions?” I knew she judged at least one major event. Judges always taste blind (not blindfolded, of course, because the visual aspect is important).
“No,” I shrugged. “It’s not how I like to taste.”
By 9:00 a.m. we were seated once again at the lecture room in the Albeisa headquarters. Dr. Edmondo Bonelli, a soil expert, stepped into the beam of a projector to lecture on the geology of Piedmont. The short version: it’s complicated. Eons ago, Piedmont was under the sea, and when the waters receded, they left behind six kilometers of sediments: sand, marl, silt, clay, sandstone, gypsum, calcium, all of it now layered and mixed, compacted and uplifted. Piedmont is unquestionably a wine region that needs soil experts.
Then we shifted gears back to the formal tasting. There were 50 wines that day, all 2021 Barolos. The organizer made an announcement. Based on feedback about Day One, this afternoon would be different. There would still be two groups, switching venues at the midpoint. There would still be thirty producers. There would still be speed tastings, with six-minute windows. But each winery could provide only two wines.
It was something. But if we were going to taste 40 wines this afternoon, I was not going to taste 50 wines this morning. I needed a strategy.
A somm approached my station with the first five wines of the day. By now, after hours of tasting and socializing over lunch and breaks, the somms and journalists had developed an easy rapport. I’d learned that this particular somm was also an enologist for a local producer, with quiet but impressive knowledge of the wines and wineries.
“Actually,” I apologized, “I’m going to need a minute.” He retreated graciously, if slightly bewildered.
I studied the list trying to come up with a defensible approach, something better than “throw a dart.” I realized if I were to taste half of the wines from Serralunga d’Alba, La Morra, and Novello, plus all of the others, it would total 30 wines. I picked five to start with and raised my hand. The somm arrived, reviewed my list, returned with bottles, filled my glasses, and breezed away.
The 2021 Barolo vintage was smooth, even, promising. The region received good snowfall in winter, and the soils retained that water charge come spring. There followed a hot, dry summer, but it was punctuated by rain in late July and mid-September, keeping the region out of drought. Italian wine expert and mapmaker Alessandro Masnaghetti notes that harvest was late that year, on average 11 October versus 7 October for the prior decade. But he cautions that it was “late” only statistically, because some wineries brought fruit in early while others chose to wait for the cooling rains forecasted in October. The variegated soils, aspects, elevations, and contours of the Barolo vineyard also produce variation. All wine is ultra-local.
The Barolos were firmly tannic, but their flavors broke apart along a continuum. On one end they were dark, with black and brooding fruits, sometimes stewed or dried. On the other they felt sunny, with shiny cherry and strawberry flavors. Some seemed quite volatile, offering a balsamic note that could be pleasant until it wasn’t, and a few had too much oak. I did find some favorites, nearly always at the sunny end of the thread.
After the tasting, and after lunch, we boarded buses for the afternoon excursions. I felt fresher having tasted fewer wines, and my jet lag was receding into the fog.
My busload started at Angelo Negro, northwest of Alba. The estate, continuously owned by the Negro family since 1670, is run by owner-winemaker Angelo Negro (like his forebear), his wife, Annalisa Paluda, and their four children. They produce over 400,000 bottles annually, all from local varieties, including an obscure grape called Bragat Ros from which they make a low-alcohol, sweet wine. Negro was an early pioneer of dry Arneis, and a niche in their old cellar displays bottles from the 1970s.
The day was gray again, lightly drizzly on and off, but not all-out rain, but still, there wasn’t a chance to see their vineyards. A colleague who is also a photographer darted off to get a few snaps of the vines while the rest of the group was shepherded inside. Negro had perhaps volunteered to host thanks to their capacious function room. The day’s event ran more smoothly than yesterday’s, and it was a relief to have only two wines in the allotted six minutes.
There were a few standout wines, including the Barolos from Costa di Bussia, and I was happy when Giulio Abrigo approached my table with that same Dolcetto he’d poured the previous night at dinner, along with a silken Barolo Ravera. It was nice to get a fresh look at the Dolcetto, and it remains one of my favorite wines of the week.
A quiet, muscular man in a light purple sweatshirt approached my table, poured, and waited patiently for us to taste. He had a Nebbiolo Langhe aged in concrete, and a Nebbiolo d’Alba. The wines were glorious, flowery, with a filigree of tea and herbs and a texture polished to a lustrous sheen.
“What do you do at the winery?” I asked. Everyone pouring wore badges that showed the producer name, but not their own names or roles, so I had to ask each time.
He smiled modestly. “A little of everything. I clean the floors, I work in shipping, I do sales, the vines…”
“So, you also work in production?” I asked.
“I am the winemaker,” he said.
And not only the winemaker: Enzo Brezza is the fifth-generation winemaker-owner of this all-organic estate. “A little of everything” would be a good title for a book about family wineries.
The tasting ended at around 4:45 p.m., and as we stuffed laptops into satchels and rediscovered our coats, the staff laid out trays of salumi and cheese. I tossed a handful of slices into a paper napkin and retreated to a corner to eat as quickly as I could, because they were already hastening us to the bus.
“No, I need this. I need a minute,” I hissed to myself, chewing. I don’t like to be rushed to eat, and dislike more rushing myself to eat. “Don’t wolf your food,” I hear my father’s voice when I was a child, as the technicolor pleasure of consummating my hunger drains out in black and white, shame overwhelms me, sadness settles into the back of my throat, my chest, and I choke up as the food becomes lead in my mouth.
Adriano Moretti welcomed us at the next winery. He was tall, athletic but also puckish, theatrical, a young self-starter who had worked in hospitality, earned WSET credentials, and did gigs as a model before circling around to winemaking. With his parents’ support, he founded Bajaj winery, producing unorthodox bottlings, like fermenting white grapes with skin contact or aging wines in terracotta.
In this second speed tasting I found a few more favorites, including Pira Luigi, Morra Gabriele, Abrigo Fratelli, and Beiva. This last winery is a brand-new project, started during lockdown in 2020 by brothers Lorenzo and Alberto Ferreiro. Lorenzo poured a scintillant Roero Arneis with flavors of green tea, jasmine, and peach, and a Roero Nebbiolo, light-colored after only ten days of maceration.
“Where did you study wine making?” I asked him.
“In my winery!” he said, adding bashfully, “But my brother did study.”
I was able, barely, to get through all 60 wines that afternoon. By the time the tasting wrapped at 7 p.m., the winter day had fallen into darkness. I had one hour at the hotel to turn it around for dinner.
When I arrived at Enoclub, a stylish restaurant in Central Alba, I was starting to feel my color returning. I realized I’d been in survival mode for two days, detached and guarded, but I’d paced myself better on Day Two, and eaten better. A colleague and I were ushered to a table in a vaulted room, warmly lit but with a cellar vibe, where our host producers were already seated.
Virna Borgogno, opposite me, was smartly dressed in a blazer and silk scarf swirling with blues and blacks, chunky glasses framing her face. She was the first woman in Italy to earn a degree in enology, in 1991. After school, she joined her father in the family’s winery, which he’d started in 1960. Borgogno is a common surname in the Langhe wine industry, so to avoid confusion, the family decided to rename the company after her: Virna.
We placed our orders and soon the first course arrived, for me a crisped potato from the local commune of Mombarcaro served with cream sauce and shaved black truffle. Jelena Voronova, representing Roberto Sarotto winery, filled our glasses with a white wine of Arneis called Srej.
It didn’t sound Italian. “What does that mean?” I asked.
“It is Piemontese dialect,” she said, “meaning ‘wood from oak trees.’” It’s also the name of a small plot of vines near the winery. Not coincidentally, the wine ages for a time in oak barrels. On the label, the four letters of the name wove through a forest of stylized trees.
I’d been noticing Piemontese terms, mostly on menus of hyper-local dishes. Like that tajarin al ragù, the thin pasta named for the local word tajar, “to cut,” or our next course, agnolotti del plin; plin means “pinched,” after the snap the fingers make when sealing the pasta pockets.
“Honestly, even though I was raised in Barolo, I cannot speak Piemontese,” said Virna, “My parents are fluent, but not my generation. I can say a few words, but that’s it.” Piemontese doesn’t have a lot in common with Italian. It’s a completely different language.
Jelena said she can’t understand it either, but she’s originally from Latvia, and Italian is one of her second languages, along with English and German. She mentioned she’d read some of my work on wine lexicons and asked me to explain what I’ve learned. I described the shift over the last fifty years from considerations of wine’s typicity and character to its olfactory or flavor notes. “It’s problematic from a lot of perspectives,” I said, “because we’ve codified these terms and require people to learn them to pass wine exams, even if they’ve never tasted those fruits or flavors. Anyway, I think think there are richer ways to talk about wine’s significance.”
“I never describe the flavors of the wine to consumers,” Virna said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“I don’t see the value,” she said. “And anyway it’s not how I think about wine.”
“Can you say more?” I said. “How do you describe your wine?”
“I say, ‘Elegant. Round. Tannic,’” she said.
I was surprised she doesn’t shy from “tannic.” Contemporary wine writing tends to pair tannin with a modifier: “velvety tannin,” “chewy tannin,” “evolved tannin,” “youthful tannin.” Rarely just “tannic.” Some people find it off-putting, even though tannins are essential to red wine in general and Barolo in particular. They are part of the wine’s skeleton, holding it upright. To some degree, like a spine, the stronger it is, the longer it lives.
She poured us her Barolo. “We are lucky to have the Cannubi cru right in front of our winery,” she said, making a gesture with her hands as if she were introducing it on stage. “Cannubi means ‘connubial,’ and in this case it’s the marriage of two soils to make the most complete wine. Elegance is its hallmark.”
Virna’s made Barolo long enough to have weathered the ebbs and swells of fashion. She graduated as an enologist just as the Barolo Boys (and single Barolo Woman) were experimenting with so-called modern techniques, like reducing yields, picking riper, and aging in small oak barrels, to suit the evolving tastes of critics and consumers. I asked if she considers herself a traditionalist or modernist.
“I’m in the middle,” she said, “because I introduced tonneaux.” Those are 500-liter aging barrels, twice the size of the barriques favored by modernists but far smaller than the traditional casks, botti, which start at 600 liters but in practice range from 1,500 to as much as 10,000. Tonneaux aging softens tannins more than a cask but less than a barrel.
I had ordered roast loin of rabbit, which came topped with braised artichoke hearts on a pillow of polenta pooled with gravy. Here was winter comfort food, a medley of brown and cream and tan, distinctly northern. The food of Piemonte is not the Italian cuisine of the American imagination, bright and tomatoey. Piedmont sits at a latitude where heat-loving Mediterranean plants start to peter out. It is not the realm of lemons and olive oil and squid, it is the realm of balsamic and butter and beef.
Virna’s Cannubi Barolo was brilliant with the rabbit, its tea-like aroma and suggestions of rosemary and hibiscus shining a spotlight on this earthy dish. To “elegant, round, tannic,” I would add “balanced” and “delicious.”
Day Three, Saturday
“How old is Nebbiolo?” Anna Schneider asked the room.
I should know this, I thought. Old. But how old?
I’d seen Dr. Schneider’s name referenced in Wines of Piemonte, by David Way, which I’d read on the flight from Boston to Milan (could it have been just three days ago?). She is an ampelographer, an authority on grapevine genetics, who is recently retired from over three decades of teaching and research at the University of Turin and Italy’s Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection.
Nebbiolo is a medieval grape, she explained. The first mention appears in a manuscript from 1266 that was discovered in northern Piemonte, near Torino. There’s evidence that by 1300, Nebbiolo was widely planted at the foot of the Alpine range and being used for wine production.
But Nebbiolo never spilled much beyond those borders. It’s a fussy vine that likes its native habitat; Dr. Schneider calls it “non-wandering.” Even today, Italy has 97% of global Nebbiolo acreage. That’s a contrast to, say, Chardonnay, which has wandered well beyond its cradle; Burgundy now has merely 20% of the world’s Chardonnay vines.
Nebbiolo’s parents are thought to be extinct, but research has confirmed that it is itself parent of other local grapes, including Arneis, Grignolino, and Freisa, and a sibling to many, including Nebbiolo Rosé and Nebbiolo Rosa, long thought to be synonyms for Nebbiolo until her research proved otherwise. Nebbiolo’s genetics are diverse, making it a good subject for development not only of new clones but new varieties that tolerate drought stress, water stress, and other calamities of climate change.
Schneider’s presentation was a hit, partly because we were a roomful of wine geeks, but also because of her disarming manner and excellent English. At the end, a few of us rose to have our photos taken with the scientist. She’s blushing in them all.
We moved to the blind tasting, and with no further wine to be poured that afternoon, I felt free to taste the lot: another 52 Barolos from 2021. About halfway through, I put a glass to my nose. Corked. I turned to a colleague seated next to me, a Master of Wine and wine educator. “Did you try number 126?” I asked.
“Yeah, I just did,” she said. “It’s funky.”
“I think it’s corked,” I said. “I’m gonna see if the somms have a second bottle.” This is standard practice; producers usually supply extras in case one gets broken or is in any way compromised. But somms always pre-taste the wines before they’re poured, so getting an off bottle in a professional context like this was unusual.
I approached the somm at the wine station, the one who’s also a winemaker. “Excuse me, number 126 —” I began.
“Yes, we know.” He shook his head apologetically. “They’re all like that. Even last week, when we had another group here, all the bottles were like that. Somebody should tell that guy, because he has a problem.”
“Yikes,” I said, suspecting the horror he felt serving corked wine to journalists.
I returned to my table and marked 0 on my worksheet but kept wondering about “that guy.” I didn’t know who it was, because of the blinded tasting list, but I felt for him. Maybe he used a sketchy batch of corks hoping it would work out. Maybe the problem wasn’t detectable at first but is now blooming in the glass. Maybe he knows he has a problem, but pallets in a warehouse are like bullion in a vault, a year’s work of revenue he can’t afford to lose.
Or maybe he truly doesn’t know, and someone really should tell him. But who? It wouldn’t be a critic, because they never publish scores of flawed wines. It wouldn’t be a somm, because they lack sufficient clout. It wouldn’t be a fellow winemaker, because that could be — awkward. It could be the director of the consortium, or the consortium’s enologist, but only if they’d tasted enough bottles to discover the extent of the problem.
But the market will tell him. Long after the wine was sold and shipped and stocked and sold again and ordered and opened and poured and then poured out, the wine bars and restaurants and shops will tell him. Not directly, indirectly. They’ll simply drop his wines.
And because no one told him, no one felt they had the clout or standing, the authority, the courage, he’ll see his revenues in free-fall and he will wonder why.
The afternoon’s pruning exercise was scuttled due to rain. I’d been looking forward to it as a gardener who owns not one but two pairs of secateurs and has rarely been in wine regions during pruning season, meaning, essentially, winter. Pruning gone wrong can ruin a vine for years, if not forever, so I’d figured we wouldn’t be set loose in a prized cru, just an experimental plot. But I was sad the rain caused a washout, especially because it was the only scheduled time to stomp in vineyards.
Instead, after lunch, we stayed at the Albeisa HQ, where agronomist Eduardo Monticelli offered a lecture on vine morphology and pruning strategy for vines trained in Guyot, which is the most popular trellising method in Piemonte. He deserves credit for the quick pivot, but his talk, with slides, once again required live translation, and I decided to drop my earpiece and try to follow the Italian. I do not claim to know the language and possess only rudimentary conversational skills. But I can follow and read it to a substantial degree thanks to high school Latin, cognates with Spanish and French and English, and my desultory relationship with Babbel.com. My accent is better than my vocabulary, so often, after pleasantries (Piacere! Mi chiamo Meg Maker.), my interlocutor will say “Oh! You speak Italian!” No, I say, it is merely a trick of the tongue, which, as usual, is way ahead of my brain.
After the lecture, we had hours of free time before our farewell pizza dinner, a circumstance beyond miraculous: unscheduled time during a press trip? I did what any other introvert would do. I retreated to my room.
Day Four, Sunday
At last: sun. The day dawned clear and I realized for the first time that I could see the Alps from my hotel room. There was a single item on the day’s agenda: to complete the formal tasting. We were given three full hours, so I slept in, arrived at 11:00, and worked swiftly through the wines.
Merely 18 wines remained, the Barolo and Barbaresco Riservas. It seemed odd to finish with so few wines, but there was some logic in it, because it allowed them to cluster typologies together. Still, the pace of this press tour had been uncharacteristically uneven.
After the tasting, I headed upstairs to lunch. Soon, one by one, journalists started peeling away, kissing their goodbyes and departing for afternoon flights to Oslo, Paris, Poland, Budapest, London, and other points north. The U.S. journalists weren’t departing until Monday, and when I’d realized, after arrival, that I’d be free on Sunday afternoon, I’d arranged to visit a favorite winery and later have dinner with one of the other Americans.
But at that moment, Nebbiolo Prima Academy was a wrap.
Epilogue
What had I learned? Or rather, had I learned what I’d come here to learn? I’d wanted story, testimony, insight. A feeling for Nebbiolo. I sense of the territory, of territorio, that Italian idea about itself.
I tasted how Nebbiolo writes its signature across northern Italy, the handwriting shifting as the grape scrawls the landscape. The syntax changes, the wording morphs, as it scribbles into diminishingly smaller precincts: village, cru, vineyard, row, vine. This grammar of territory can only be learned over time, and it takes decades, maybe generations, to become fluent. In four days one barely learns the alphabet.
But territory is changing. Not soil, but climate. Right now the 2024 vintage is cask and barrel, maybe still burbling through malolactic. The season was wet, cold, and challenging, quite unlike the mostly anodyne 2021, the variable 2022, the hot but sometimes sodden 2023. Growing seasons and harvest dates in Piedmont are far more variable than they used to be, with picking happening earlier than the 50-year average but also later, too. As elsewhere, climate change is not simply making regions hotter, it’s making them more variable, throwing traditions into disarray. If your family has for centuries pulled in Nebbiolo in early October, yet it is mid September and the grapes are ready to go, you have no playbook. Your records at your site might go back 200 years, 500 years, even longer, and harvest has never been that early. Your forebears were confident, yet here is a new reality. You second guess yourself: Could I be making a grave mistake?
Climate chaos makes the debate between traditionalism and modernism look like a quaint shouting match between old timers at a pot-bellied stove. The historic wines, raised with less oxygen in neutral wood cask, were stern, tannic, unfriendly, yes, but the era was also less ripe and less volatile. “We’ve always done it this way” works fine provided other variables aren’t also wiggling. The modernist shift toward a so-called friendlier style coincided with the beginning of the period of accelerated climate warming, and that coincidence shouldn’t be dismissed. According to Alessandro Masnaghetti, before 1990, the average harvest date across the Barolo territory was never earlier than October 7. Since then, it has been earlier 13 times, some years by almost two weeks. If the wines are more ripe, more approachable, who’s to say it’s because of what’s happening in the cellar? Maybe some of what we think of as “modern” is happening naturally in the field.
Anna Schneider made a strong argument for the value of research on Nebbiolo, given its genetic promiscuity and promise in the development of new vines. I was struck by the grape’s hyper-locality. I once worked for a winery in California that grew Nebbiolo in the Central Coast, and the wine it yielded was sort of like the original, but more second cousin than fraternal twin. Nebbiolo is a fiercely local grape, fiercely prized, territorial, bound not only to geological place but also geographical place. It is a wine that can only be from here, grown here, and made only by these people here.
I got close to what I wanted to a few times: the chance to sit down with a thoughtful winemaker, taste a few wines, eat some food, talk about their work, their place, what they’re reaching for, what’s in their way. Everyone has stories like that. I do, too. Given shifting tastes, market tectonics, and climate chaos throwing wine and everything else into pandemonium, such conversations feel vital and necessary. Because there’s a single thing that makes wine matter: people.
Favorite Wines
Below are 65 wines selected from formal and speed tastings. I’ve listed them alphabetically by what you’ll see on the label, since surnames may be shown first (Abrigo Giovanni) and or second (Alberto Ballarin); both wines appear with the As. Tasting notes are necessarily impressionistic due to the volume of wines I tasted. At this writing, the following wines are available in at least some U.S. states.
2023 Abrigo Fratelli Dolcetto Diano d’Alba: Easy fruits, black plum, black coffee
2022 Abrigo Giovanni Dolcetto Diano d’Alba Superiore Garabei: Violets, anise, licorice, blue and purple fruit, plum, bright and shiny acidity
2020 Abrigo Giovanni Barolo Ravera: Lovely mix of red and black fruit, herbs, supremely silky tannins, seamless; all parts fit together
2022 Adriano Marco e Vittorio Barbaresco Basarin: Good mid-palate weight, triangular acidity, black fruits; deep finish with knit-together tannins
2021 Alberto Ballarin Barolo Bricco Rocca: Fresh tarragon, fennel, lively red fruits and subtle, integrated tannins
2022 Albino Rocca Barbaresco Ronchi: Dried strawberry, flowers, cinnamon, red fruit and ripe tannins; juicy finish
2022 Armando di Piazzo Marina Barbaresco Pajorè: Dark fruit, dried fruit, substantial body, big wine; core of dark cherry juice and big, ripe tannins
2020 Asinari dei Marchesi di Gresy Gaiun Barbaresco Riserva Martinenga: Green olive, dried tomato, soy sauce, bay leaf; flavors of dark fruits with spice, juicy at finish; odd but in a nice way
2021 Aurelio Settimo Barolo Rocche dell’Annunziata: Dark flowers, night garden, perfume, jasmine; light textured, elegant and velvety tannins, integrated acidity
2023 Beiva Roero Arneis: Jasmine, white peach, green tea flavors; full malolactic and some lees aging give texture
2022 Beiva Roero Nebbiolo: Pretty fruit and flower fragrance, grippy tannins
2020 Borgogno Derthona Scaldapulce: White wine of Timorrasso; Sappy, white pepper, grapefruit pith, some hydrocarbon; enormous texture; Maria Giovanna, from the winery, said, “We call it a red wine in a white coat, because this wine can age a long time.”
2021 Boroli Barolo Brunella: Powerful fruit, dark cherry fruit, velvety tannins that are integrated with the acids; a bit of savoriness at the finish
2021 Bovio Barolo Commune di la Morra: Smooth, even, friendly, easy-textured
2021 Bovio Barolo Parussi: Fresh herbs, flowers, light-hearted
2019 Bovio Barolo Riserva Gattera: Balsamic, woodsy, cherries steeped with rosemary, plum, a bit of prune; polished tannins and fruit that carries all the way through
2021 Bovio Barolo Rocchetterino: Powerful herbs and black fruit, dark, satiny, mouth-filling
2022 Brezza Giacomo e Figli Nebbiolo d’Alba: Light, elegant, profuse flowery fruit and black- tea-like tannins; beautiful
2023 Brezza Giacomo e Figli Nebbiolo Langhe: Raised in concrete; supreme floral fragrance, light textured, light colored, limpid, elegant green-tea-like tannins, juicy strawberry
2021 Bruna Grimaldi Barolo Bricco Ambrogio: Fresh air, cranberry, herbs; velvety mid-section, blazing finish, fresh top notes
2021 Cà del Baio Barbaresco Pora: Flowers, dried herbs
2019 Cà del Baio Barbaresco Vallegrande: Round, firm, floral
2022 Cà del Baio Langhe Chardonnay Valentin: Classic, elegant, Burgundian (winemaker Valentina Grasso trained in Burgundy)
2022 Carlo Giacosa Maria Grazia Barbaresco Asili: Fruit and fresh air, fennel, anise; sharp cherry fruit on palate but spreading texture
2022 Cascina Val del Prete Vigna di Lino Roero: Pretty flowery aromas, cranberry fruit, firm acidity, fresh and lively
2021 Casetta Casa Vinicola Case Nere Barolo La Morra: Fresh air, strawberry, dried and fresh; velvety texture with subtle fruit, seamless, bright finish lifts it up
2022 Castello di Verduno Barbaresco: Herbs, tar, cranberry and cherry; lovely silky acidity and ripe tannins; long finish
2021 Cavallotto Barolo Bricco Boschis: Quiet fruit, herbs, fresh air; corduroy tannins but overall a lighter style; blazing red cherry acidity at finish
2017 Costa di Bussia Tenuta Arnulfo Campo di Buoi Barolo: Fresh strawberry, flowers, graphite, tannins like corduroy and velvet
2017 Costa di Bussia Tenuta Arnulfo Barolo Riserva: Flowery, tea-like, drying with a breath of flowers at the finish
2021 Dosio Barolo Fossati: Dried cherry, red grapefruit, herbs; complicated and highly appealing aroma, flavor; texture extremely smooth and even, like velour
2021 E. Pira e Figli Barolo Cannubi: Tart berries at the attack, the fruit a mix of raspberry and pink grapefruit; lighter style; glittery
2021 E. Pira e Figli Barolo Via Nuova: Fruit from seven different plots; flowers, herbs, deep complexity
2022 E. Pira e Figli Langhe Nebbiolo: Fresh, drinkable, seamlessly smooth, integrated
2022 Elvio Pertinace Barbaresco Nervo: Flowers and candied fruits but also sparkling acidity with a long, salivating finish
2021 Fratelli Broccardo Barolo Bricco San Pietro: Dried and candied red fruits; stern tannins but nice cranberry core
2021 G.D. Vajra Barolo Coste di Rose: Dried fruit, violets, herbs, stone; bright and shiny texture, a drying flare at finish; direct and linear
2021 G.D. Vajra Barolo Ravera: Dark fruits, pomegranate, tea; spreading, broad at mid-palate, tannins like corduroy; integrated and beautiful
2021 G.D. Vajra Barolo Bricco delle Viole: Red berries, ripe plum fruits; balanced, well-worked tannins a flare of acidity at the finish; friendly and drinkable but with authority
2021 G.D. Vajra Luigi Baudana Barolo Baudana: Dried cranberry, rounded red fruits, dried strawberry; tannins like velour, but bright red fruit carries the finish
2021 Gianfranco Alessandria Barolo San Giovanni: Dark fruit, bramble, black cherry, evolved tannins; a big wine with just enough of everything
2022 Giordano Luigi Giuseppe Barbaresco Montestefano: High keyed fruit, sour cherry, ripe tannins; drying but not astringent
2021 Josetta Saffirio Barolo Perno: Quiet, dried strawberry, black cherry; well evolved tannins; attractive balance of fruit and texture
2022 Lequio Ugo Barbaresco: Fresh air, cranberry, moderate weight and corduroy texture, scintillant finish; balanced
2019 Luigi Vico Barolo Serralunga d’Alba: Limpid, tea-tinted with tea-like tannins, blazing acidity
2021 Manzone Gian Paolo Barolo Meriame Serralunga d’Alba: Plum, red apple skin, purple flowers (wilted, a bit decadent); texture open wide, not too juicy
2020 Marcarini Barolo Brunate: Firm-textured, tannic, good savoriness
2023 Marcarini Dolcetto d’Alba Boschi di Berri Prefillossera (own-rooted vines): wildflower perfume, red fruits, profound acidity, linear, pure, direct like an arrow
2018 Mario Gagliasso Barolo Riserva: Earthy, lively, tea-like tannins, nice maturity and complexity
2021 Mario Gagliasso Barolo Tre Utin: Substantial fruit, flowers, smooth-textured, shiny finish
2022 Morra Gabriele Barbaresco: Flowers, dried herbs, black cherry; silk-satin texture, with a blaze of bright acidity at the end
2023 Morra Gabriele Langhe Nebbiolo Foravia: Super floral, rose petals, cherries, green-tea tannins
2021 Negro Angelo Sudisfà Roero Riserva: Red cherry, oak, tea, sandalwood, spicy; smooth, integrated tannins; friendly and accessible
2021 Oddero Barolo Villero: Light, thin, crystal, brittle but with ripe tannins and savoriness
2021 Palladino Barolo Parafada: Plum, herbs, anise seed, licorice, flavors edged with tobacco, smoky; a bitter finish
2021 Pecchenino Barolo Bussia: Dried strawberry, blackberry flowers, violets, red berries; scintillant acidity, glittery at finish; refreshing and delightful
2021 Pira Luigi Barolo Margheria: Plummy fruits, youthful, fey, sweet tea with cranberry; high key, light on its feet
2021 Pira Luigi Barolo Serralunga d’Alba: Herbs, flowers, youthful sweetness, velure tannins; joyful
2021 Pira Luigi Barolo Vignarionda: Earthy, dark, woodsy, black plums, lively acidity, rambunctious tannins
2021 Raineri Gianmatteo Barolo Perno: Red fruit, rounded, approachable
2023 Roberto Sarotto Arneis Srej: Herbal top notes, spreading texture
2021 Rocche Costamagna Barolo Rocche dell’Annunziata: Fresh herbs, fennel, red fruits, smooth texture; even keeled
2021 Tenuta Rocca Barolo Bussia: Red and black cherry, lovely midpalate structure, well integrated
2015 Virna Barolo Cannubi: Herbal aroma, especially rosemary red tea and hibiscus flavors, firm tannins; an elegant through-line
2021 Vite Colte Essenze Barolo: Dark cherry and black raspberry fruit, a touch of oak; friendly and approachable
I’m grateful to the consortiums of Albeisa, Barolo and Barbaresco, and Roero for their hospitality, and to AB Communicazione for trip logistics. My travel, accommodation, and meals were paid for by the Albeisa consortium and their partners; all wines were samples for editorial review.
