Barolo and Barbaresco: A Real Guide to Nebbiolo

We went to Alba in November, which is either the best or the worst time to visit the Langhe depending on how you feel about fog. It sits in the valleys until nearly midday and turns the vine rows into something out of a Victorian novel. We had gone for the truffle market, ate far too much of it, and came home having decided that if we ever got another dog she would be called Truffle. She arrived some years later, and she is the smallest and least dignified of our five.

What we did not expect was to spend the rest of the trip arguing about Nebbiolo. Anna was converted immediately. Tim, who had grown up in Lancashire on tea strong enough to strip paint and therefore ought to have been ready for the tannin, took considerably longer.

A pale wine that hits like a dark one

Pour a young Barolo and it looks harmless. Nebbiolo produces a wine of translucent garnet, often with a brick-orange rim before it is a decade old, and anyone raised on opaque Californian reds will assume they are in for something light. Then it arrives: tannin like a wire brush, searing acidity, and aromatics of tar, rose, sour cherry and dried herbs. The gap between how it looks and how it behaves is the single most disorienting thing in Italian wine, and it is the reason so many people bounce off their first bottle.

The name most likely derives from nebbia, the fog we drove through. It is a difficult, late-ripening variety that refuses to produce anything worth drinking outside a small number of hillside sites in Piedmont, and the growers there have spent several centuries working out precisely which ones.

Barolo, Barbaresco, and the difference that matters

Both are made from 100% Nebbiolo, and they sit about fifteen miles apart. Barolo covers eleven communes south-west of Alba and requires a minimum of 38 months of ageing before release, at least 18 of which must be in wood; Riserva demands 62 months. Barbaresco, to the north-east, needs 26 months with 9 in wood, and 50 months for Riserva.

Those extra months are not just bureaucracy. Barbaresco sits slightly lower and warmer, ripens a little earlier, and generally arrives at your table more approachable, with a perfumed, silkier frame. Barolo is the more imposing wine, and in its firmest expressions it is genuinely difficult to drink young. The old line is that Barbaresco is the one you buy and Barolo is the one you inherit.

Within Barolo, the geology splits the appellation neatly in half. The western communes around La Morra and Barolo itself sit on younger Tortonian marls, giving softer, more aromatic wines that open earlier. The eastern side, Serralunga d'Alba and Monforte d'Alba in particular, sits on older, sandier Serravallian soils and produces wines with more tannin and a much longer runway. If you have tried a Barolo and found it austere to the point of hostility, it was very probably from Serralunga and very probably about twenty years too early.

The cru system, and the fight that preceded it

Barbaresco formalised its named vineyard sites in 2007 and Barolo followed in 2010, giving 66 and 181 Menzioni Geografiche Aggiuntive respectively. These are the crus: Cannubi, Brunate, Rocche dell'Annunziata, Asili, Rabajà. The names had been in informal use for generations, and the regulations largely ratified what growers already knew.

Before that came the Barolo Wars of the 1980s and 1990s, when a younger generation began using French barriques, shorter macerations and green harvesting to make darker, softer, earlier-drinking wines, and the traditionalists stuck with long macerations and large Slavonian oak botti. The argument was fierce, occasionally personal, and has largely resolved itself into a middle ground. Most producers now use a bit of both and decline to discuss it.

Where to start, and what it costs

Begin with Langhe Nebbiolo, which is the same grape from younger vines or declassified plots, aged briefly and released early. Produttori del Barbaresco make one at around $25 to $30 that tastes unmistakably of the place without asking you to wait a decade. It is the bottle we suggest most often to people who say they want to understand Nebbiolo.

Produttori are also our honest answer to which producer we admire most. They are a growers' co-operative founded in 1958, they own a remarkable share of the best land in Barbaresco, and their straight Barbaresco at roughly $40 to $50 outperforms a great many wines at twice the money. A co-operative producing some of the appellation's most reliable bottles is not what the wine trade's usual mythology would predict.

For a first Barolo, G.D. Vajra Barolo Albe at about $40 is the gentlest introduction we know, floral and comparatively forgiving in youth. If you want the other end of the spectrum, Massolino Barolo from Serralunga, usually around $55 to $65, shows you what the eastern soils do; give it a few years or a very long decant. The wines of Bartolo Mascarello and Giuseppe Rinaldi are the ones collectors chase, and their prices have followed accordingly.

Do not overlook the everyday wines either. Barbera d'Alba has the acidity and almost none of the tannin, and Dolcetto is what people in the Langhe actually drink on a Tuesday. Both sit comfortably under $25.

What to eat with it

Tajarin with butter, brasato al Barolo, aged Castelmagno. Nebbiolo's tannin wants fat and protein, and it is one of the few red wines that genuinely improves alongside a mushroom risotto. If you are lucky enough to have a white truffle in the house, open the oldest Barolo you own and shave it over almost anything.

We taste everything on our list ourselves, and we both have to like a bottle before it goes to a customer, which means we can tell you honestly whether a given Barolo is ready or whether you would be better served by the Langhe Nebbiolo for now. If you have had one you loved, or one that defeated you, write to us or ring us and tell us which. We will ship to your door, and we would much rather have the conversation than send you an algorithm's guess.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Barolo and Barbaresco?
Both are made entirely from Nebbiolo in neighbouring parts of Piedmont. Barbaresco is grown in a slightly warmer area, requires 26 months of ageing before release, and is usually approachable younger. Barolo requires 38 months, comes from eleven communes to the south-west, and tends to be more tannic and longer-lived.

Why is Barolo so pale if it is such a powerful wine?
Nebbiolo is naturally low in the pigments that give other red grapes their depth of colour, whilst being very high in tannin and acidity. The pale garnet colour and the orange rim that develops early are typical of the variety and are not signs of a faded or faulty wine.

How long should I keep a bottle of Barolo?
A modern-styled Barolo from the western communes can be enjoyable at five to eight years from the vintage. Wines from Serralunga d'Alba or Monforte d'Alba, and most Riservas, generally need ten to fifteen years and can last several decades. If you want to drink one tonight, decant it for at least two hours.

What is a cheaper alternative to Barolo?
Langhe Nebbiolo is the obvious answer, often made by the same producers from younger vines and priced from about $20 to $30. Nebbiolo d'Alba and the wines of Roero are also worth seeking out, as are Ghemme and Gattinara from northern Piedmont.