Bocchino

We'd met Cinzia Bocchino at a producer dinner last year and the wines she had brought along to that event had seemed promising, so on this trip we scheduled a visit to the winery.

Luckily for everyone, this was also the day the Organic Certification Inspection Official decided to drop by for an easy going chat and laid back afternoon. He asked lots of exciting questions like "Did you file pre-registration forms A256, CD100, and BB2598 with the required and peripheral ministry department sub consuls before the 29 of June, 2010 deadline and do you have the officiated copies of each for examination?"

While Cinzia spent her day being charmed by the gentleman of Officialdom, our party tasted wine and toured the winery with Eugenio Bocchino, Cinzia's husband.

Eugenio (in the background of this shot) opened several bottles for us and pulled a couple of 2010 tank samples as well. As you can see in the above picture, Summer Wolff of importer Indie Wineries liked the "La Perucca" 2010 Nebbiolo so much that she went ahead and prayed for a bigger sample. I personally enjoyed the "Lu" 2006 Barolo, which is named after the daughter of Cinzia and Eugenio.

Eugenio shows us the packaging of his "Tom" bottling.

I begin to see a theme.

And along comes the original inspiration.

We take a tour of the winery facility.

The winery is attached to the house.

Apparently, stylish red hoses are in this year.

Also, red marking pens.

And red crates.

After a few minutes of this Eugenio tells us that personally, if he isn't tasting wine he prefers to be in the vineyards, rather than the winery.

So off we go to the Roccabella vineyard.

Roccabella is near the town of Roddi, and as such, is out of the Barolo zone. Eugenio bottles the fruit from here as a Langhe Nebbiolo.

Eugenio has been farming the Roccabella vineyard with biodynamic methods. Some of the vines are still a bit young here. Eugentio tends to destem the grapes and let the fruit come out and be accessible.

All in all it seems like Eugenio tends to look for a certain amount of fruit heft in the wines, and where they are most successful for me is when they combine that broad and open fruit character with a freshness that keeps them together. 

I was happy to visit this producer which I didn't know much about, and plan on keeping an eye on future releases as they come out.

Back tomorrow with more Piemonte posts

The northern limit of Verduno. The Nebbiolo on the left is Barolo. The Nebbiolo on the right is della Langhe.

Will be back tomorrow with a return to the story of Barolo and more posts.

Brezza

The Brezza cantina, as well as the Brezza family restaurant and hotel, is in the town of Barolo and you can see the nearby castle of Barolo from the driveway.

The Brezza cantina.

Brezza keeeps an assortment of old winemaking equipment and wine antiques near the stacked bottles in the front part of the cantina.

The old Brezza.

The young Brezza.

The old Mr. Brezza.

The young Mr. Brezza.

Recent visitors to the cantina left their notes.

My own notes indicate a preference for the Bricco Sarmassa amongst the Brezza 2008s.

But I was happy to try several more as well.



Canonica

I've had exactly one example of a Canonica wine, this one, the 2008 Barolo, and let me tell you, I Loved it. That kind of clarity to the fruit on the palate, well, I'm not sure if I know of another example that would be similar. At least not in Barolo, which is where Giovanni Canonica lives and has long worked. If you were to tell me that you have liked Occhipinti in Sicily or Lapierre in Morgon, then I would tell you not to hesitate in finding yourself a bottle of Canonica, because it is fabulous.

There isn't so much to go around. Canonica makes one small lot of Barbera that he doesn't sell and the one Barolo each year. And that's it. He has a bit of Dolcetto that he turns into a grape condiment to have with cheese and bread. As far as wine goes, there really isn't much. But what there is, well, it's delicious.

The cellar space at Canonica is behind the house. There are several ways to describe the space in Italian. "Small" might be one translation. "Tiny" might be another. I'm sorry that my comprehension of the language isn't better that I might know which particular phrase to use.

Fiberglass fermenting tanks. Most of them that are there are in this picture.

That's 2,500 liters in the tank.

The labelling station. The bottle sits on the board, the person sits on the stool, and the labels are applied by hand.

Paiagallo is the vineyard site.

We go for a visit.

The vineyard slope overlooks the town of Barolo.

Giovanni stands next to one of his vines. I believe this is a Dolcetto vine, with grapes destined for condimenti.

Pie Franco Nebbiolo vine. There are several here.

In general many of the vines, layered or not, have significant age.

The signature tint of a Nebbiolo leaf.

Giovanni has tied this piece of vine to the trellising, where it hangs as a marker in the vineyard.

I found my own marker in this wine, which is a new benchmark for Barolo in my mind.

Boasso and the Gabutti cru

It was one of those perfectly sunny days in Serralunga.

Mr. Boasso came over to greet us. He carries with him the hands of a farmer. Big, giant, powerful hands.

We were also greeted by THE OFFICIAL WELCOMER OF THE BOASSO FAMILY, who spent a good deal of time talking to us and making sure we had everything she needed.

Boasso is closely associated with the Gabutti cru, which is right nearby the winery.

Gabutti is a big ol' vineyard. Cappellano, who also gets grapes from here, has vines near the bottom.

The top of the Gabutti cru. Mr. Boasso is building the house at the top for his son-in-law.

Last year's Gabutti harvest has made its way inside the cellar.

Boasso also makes a generalized Serralunga Barolo, and since 2003 there is a cru bottling from the Serralunga vineyard of Margheria.

Mr. Boasso tells us about the new provisional legislation regarding how crus can be labelled on a bottle. As the rulings stand now, it may no longer be allowed for a single winery to bottle two different grape varieties as coming from the same vineyard. So if you have Barbera and Nebbiolo planted in the same vineyard you could choose to have the vineyard name on the Barolo bottle or on the Barbera bottle, but you couldn't have it on both. Also, if you purchased grapes or wine from another grower, you could not use the associated cru name on the final bottle. You would have to use the generalized commune name instead.

Apparently, these changes are subject to appeal at the moment, but they still seemed like huge news to me. Think about it: Cascina Francia Barbera or Cascina Francia Barolo, but not both. And if I buy your grapes from Rionda I can't call my Barolo Rionda, I can only call it Barolo Serralunga. That implies large ramifications if the legislations passes as is. It seems like the prices asked for grapes sold from prestigious crus could only go down without the possibility of attaching the name. I guess we'll see what happens.

Mr. Boasso also tells us that in his opinion, 2007 is a pretty lousy year for Barolo, and in fact he doesn't even show us his 2007s, opting instead for 2006s and 2004s. One gets the sense that Boasso wines need a bit of time, so there is probably some logic to this.

"Let me tell you something about good wine" says Mr. Boasso, "if you want to make good wine you had better not say a lot, because nobody knows a lot. I've been doing this for 40 years, and in wine 2 plus 2 never equals 4. I am careful not to throw away tradition, and I know that wine is made in the vineyard."

If you haven't had a Boasso Gabutti with some age on it and a roast leg of lamb, I would recommend that you do that for yourself next winter. The Serralunga sun will warm you right up.