Barbaresco Wine Showdown Transcript
Written By: Anonymous on Mon, Aug 27th 2007
Brian Freedman: Welcome to the Weekly Wine Showdown, brought to you by Classicwines.com. I am Brian Freedman and I am smirking today because we are drinking Barbaresco. Barbaresco is one of favorite wines. It's known as the queen of Italian wines, as opposed to the king, which is Barolo. Both of them are located in North-Western Italy in the Piedmont Region, and both of them are made from the Nebbiolo grape, which is really known as one of the finest grapes, if not the finest grape variety in Italy.
Today, we will be tasting two wines from the 2003 vintage - and we've talked about this before in the Weekly Wine Showdown and also in the Classic Wine Minutes. Really hot vintage drought in Western Europe, not great for people, not great for grapes necessarily unless you are dealing with very warm sort of regions anyhow. We will see what this did with Barbaresco, which tends to need a little bit cooler weather in order to retain the aromatics and acidity.
So, wine number one today is the Rocca Felice 2003 Barbaresco and wine number two today is S. Orsola 2003 Barbaresco. I woke up this morning, I was downright giddy over the prospect of tasting this - that's not weird. So, let's give this a swirl and smell. Boy, I mean this smells like everything you'd want from Barbaresco.
And frankly you'd never know that this is from a really hot, dry year, because you are getting all those great aromatics. There is a shop not far from my apartment in Philadelphia that sells these chocolates that actually have black and oolong tea in them. It smells like that, it smells like dried rose petals, it smells like crushed red and blackberries -- not so much that truffle thing that we normally get from Barbaresco, but I will give them a pass this time and see how it goes on the taste.
I wouldn't mind cutting film right now; I am just sitting in a corner, rocking slowly back and forth with this bottle. Great acid, great tannin structure; the aromatics really follow-through to the mid-palate; the finish really almost makes me taste like -- it makes me feel like I was just eating chocolates and chasing it with shots of rosewater, which is a good thing when we are talking about Barbaresco, but it's not overly floral - really, just a beautiful wine.
Wine number two S. Orsola 2003 Barbaresco, and let's see how this one is; boy, on the nose, it's a totally different wine. I am getting something a little chocolaty. The fruit is darker, riper, perhaps heading in the 2:47 direction - I'm getting something like truffles there. It does smell like Barbaresco but it's not nearly as aromatic as I would like it to be, though perhaps that's understandable for a hot year like '03.
Okay, there is nothing wrong with this wine. It's well-made, it's in balance, though perhaps the alcohol comes off a little bit hot. Again chocolaty, it's a little more modern in style, new-world in style, easier to drink perhaps, but to tell you the truth there is no question in my mind which wine wins this week. It absolutely has to be the Rocca Felice 2003 Barbaresco. For me, this is everything you want out of a Barbaresco and it's less than 20 bucks. For that price, buy half a case, drink it over the next year or two. I know I will be, and I will be billing Classic Wines.
Thank you Classic Wines. On behalf of all of us here at the Weekly Wine Showdown, I am Brian Freedman, and remember, no matter what kind of Barbaresco you prefer, no matter what kind of vintage weather you prefer, don't get bent out of shape over it, it's only grape juice. Cheers!
