Pillowy, fresh snow blanketed the hall in Nizza last night while Asti winemakers faced off with the press over the issues surrounding the use of oak in their barberas. Most of the major winemakers from the Nizza subzone of Barbera D’Asti were in attendance to both show their wines and to pitch their plan to achieve DOC status. Having tasted nearly 200 wines from around the Asti region including Nizza, the overwhelming criticism from attendees, myself included, has been an excess use of barrique or small, french oak barrels in an effort to create a vastly improved or even “super barbera.” If oak was on everyone’s mind, The Nizza conference staved these thoughts into a powder keg.
“What was wrong with the old Barbera?” was the big question, and not just from our group from the US and UK. Visitors from around the globe: China, Poland, Belgium, Denmark, Malaysia, Japan are all asking why this great shift has occurred. The answers have been brutally honest like the crowd stunner from Piedmont’s legendary producer Michele Chiarlo last night that “A wine is good if it sells” and a leading area oenologist saying that “like makeup can make a beautiful woman even more beautiful, such is the same with oak.” Other explanations put the reasons on the needs of strong barbera selling markets like Norway. The explanations are all reasonable but the results don’t lie. Listen guys, most of us just aren’t getting excited about the majority of your wines, particularly those that are barriqued. If sales are on your mind, we’re giving you pearls. I understand that this is a business and that changes may be difficult make. As a restaurant owner who also has payrolls to make and wine to buy, I can say with confidence that completely ignoring your public (one that actually does deeply love your region) will bite you in the ass.
The producers insist that the use of oak is never intended to pander to any audience, but to give a good balance of freshness, acidity, tannins and overall structure. While I believe that this statement is honest and well intended, I hope that they note that when a very sympathetic public is having trouble finding excitement in such a huge list of wines, something is very wrong. I have never seen such a broad rejection of wood, as if the grape had an allergy.
A diamond in the rough was the “Suri” from Villa Giada by a young winemaker named Andrea Faccio. The Suri is a wonderful stainless steel barbera that retails fro around $11 in the US. This wine was fresh and simple and a pleasure to drink after so many confused, unbalanced and sometimes downright flawed wines. The Suri wine was not actually in the tasting, his barriqued, upper tier Barbera was which in itself showed the inherent disconnect of the conference. I made sure to talk at length with the winemaker Andrea who was a great guy and will certainly find a slot at Jaynes. Like Mr. Chiarlo explained, this is a business, and in the end it was a simple, traditional Barbera that won mine.
Today, Monferrato….
