Langhe Nebbiolo

I struggle with lighter versions of Langhe Nebbiolo because I don’t understand the place they hold at the table. I don’t really have a clear idea under what circumstances I am supposed to drink them.

It makes perfect sense that since Barolo itself is so much a wine for special occasions that winegrowers should be given a recognized DOC in order to sell wine almost immediately at a lower price point. And so we have Langhe Nebbiolo DOC.  As we do Rosso di Montalcino DOC. And it has been very successful.  Customers can expect the beauty of nebbiolo made by a favored wine maker in a style suitable for immediate drinking for a price normally a third or a quarter of their Barolo.

But its important to recognize that Langhe Nebbiolo basically comes in two styles. The first is a lighter style that is fermented for only a fairly short period and sees no wood at all. It is aged in stainless steel for perhaps a year.  The second style is more substantial. The wine may be fermented in wood - though have less lengthy contact with the skins than were it to be a Barolo - and will have seen some months in wood in its aging. There are wines that fall between these two styles, but broadly these are the two approaches.

The first style is made for almost immediate consumption for the freshness of its fruit. It is a wine that is a celebration of the nebbiolo variety’s exuberant fruit. The second can be kept many years. The more serious style has been pejoratively called a “mini barolo”. Some growers make it and others seem very much to prefer the lighter style, feeling that they don’t also want to make a second class “Barolo”.

Nebbiolo isn’t my aperitif wine grape of choice. So that’s out. And to my taste the lighter style doesn’t really work at table because although there is the prettiness and freshness of fruit, there is also quite a lot of acid and tannin. There isn’t so much depth to the fruit. So the wines when in their first or second year to me do not always seem to be in the best balance. They can seem quite angular and disjointed, in need of calming down. And yet if you wait several years that beautiful fresh fruit disappears and there is not the depth of fruit to compensate for its loss. There are normally better options. Chianti perhaps ? The more serious style to my taste works better at table. There is normally enough fruit concentration to support and balance out the substantial framework. These are wines meant to be kept six or seven years perhaps and develop a little complexity along the journey at the expense of the initial prettiness and freshness. So I tend to prefer this style. But I sometimes ask - why not drink a Barolo and get the real thing ?

That’s just me.  You may differ.  And I am happy to be proved wrong.