Bartolo Mascarello Barolo 1996
No wine holds my fascination in quite the way that Barolo does. And the irony is that until very recently, I’d only ever tasted Barolo on one previous occasion. And yet, the idea of Barolo has fired my imagination since I first began learning about wine.
Barolo is the wine produced in the DOCG of the same name, located in northern Italy’s Piedmont region. It is made from 100% Nebbiolo and is often cited as the purest expression of this finicky grape. Known as “the king of wines and the wine of kings”, Barolo is renowned for it’s remarkable aging potential and the miraculous grace and beauty that it acquires with extended aging.
Barolo is also ground-zero for the now two-decades old, international debate between traditional and modern-style producers. It is, in fact, where the whole debate took its starkest shape.
Up until the 1990′s nearly all Barolo was made in the same fashion. The grapes were grown in abundance in the vineyards, and after being crushed the wine (including skins and stems) was fermented over the course of 10-20 days in untopped oak vats. Following fermentation, aging took place in large oak casks called “botti”. The result was a very dry wine loaded with tannins, that required decades of aging before really coming into its own. Nonetheless, the result was a wine that was considered sublime by those who had the opportunity to taste its best examples.
But in the 1990′s wine-making in Piedmont (and worldwide) began to drastically change. Many trace the changes back to Angelo Gaja who began aging his wine in French oak barriques in the late 1960′s. With barriques came a host of other changes including better selection and wine-growing practices in the vineyards, the use of roto-fermenters designed to extract pigment but not tannin from the grapes, and briefer aging in barrels, to limit the oaky tannins added to the wine. The result has come to be known colloquially as the international style, since wines from California, Australia, Spain, and Italy all began to present themselves and taste so similarly to one another.
These were barolos that were accessible and delicious at a young age, and understandably they found a receptive audience among wine drinkers. But with this success came questions – about the wine’s ability to age, about the lack of terroir, or typicity of the wine – and inescapably a backlash from traditionalist producers. Those producers who continued to practice more traditional methods spoke out, sometimes fervently, against the modernist producers, and with this debate arrived what has come to be seen as a schism of sorts between the two schools, modern vs. traditional.
While most producers have a foot in both worlds, perhaps using some percentage of barriques as opposed to 100%, there are those iconic producers who cling to one side of the debate or the other. Angelo Gaja is perhaps the most prominent of the modernists, and Bartolo Mascarello was perhaps the most recognizable of the traditionalists.
Mascarello’s father Giulio was one of the first prominent grower-producers of Barolo. He began producing wines in the 1920′s and first bought land in the Cannubi area of Piedmont in the 1930′s. At this time, and for several decades to come, Barolo was always made as a blend of grapes from multiple plots, in order to take advantage of the strengths of each individual grape-growing area. It was this family business and tradition that Bartolo took over in 1981.
As the modern-style Barolo gained in popularity and production, Bartolo Mascarello quickly rose to prominence as the icon for traditionalist Barolo producers. The following statement from A Wine Atlas Of The Langhe aptly sums up his winemaking philosophy:
Faithful to his father’s teachings, Bartolo always made a Barollo that had no truck with fashion, a wine traditionalist by conviction and philosophy. There was no technological wizardry in his cellar, nor were they any barriques. Bartolo’s Barolo was made with grapes from the family’s four plots at Cannubi, San Lorenzo, and Ruè in the municipality of Barolo and Torriglione at La Morra. As used to be the custom, Bartolo made no vineyard selections, which ‘would have brought success at the box-office, but would have betrayed tradition.’
In his later years, when he was no longer able to actively take part in the winemaking activities, he devoted part of his time to creating hand-drawn labels for the Barolo, culminating perhaps in his several “No Barriques, No Berlosconi” labels in the late 1990′s and early 2000′s. You can find some images of these labels here, here, here, and here along with lots of info here about the Mascarello Barolos.
I became fascinated with Bartolo Mascarello’s wines before I’d ever had the chance to try any of them. The story that he and his wines embody is utterly romantic, and for someone who is so intellectually interested in wine it is unavoidably attractive. I was entranced with the notion of being able to try the most traditional of traditional Barolos.
And yet, Mascarello’s wines are very rare and difficult to find. And so I was immeasurably lucky to receive a bottle of the Bartolo Mascarello 1996 Barolo from my lovely wife on the occasion of our first anniversary. This was a bottle produced by Bartolo himself, and we hesitated only briefly before opening it a couple of days after celebrating our wedded bliss.
The bottle itself is artfully understated (you can see a photo here). The wine poured a medium-deep purple in the center, fading to a rusty-colored red at the edges. The nose was delicately fragrant, with scents of fresh cherries, strawberries, and mint, layered against a backdrop of earthy minerality. The wine’s flavors are fresh and vibrant, with notes of black cherries, raspberries, a trace of black liquorice, herbal mint, and brambly minerals intricately woven together. The tannins are fairly mild, noticeable but not overpowering, and lending the wine a nice, firm grip. Despite the tannins the texture is light, making the wine easily drinkable. The finish seems to go on forever, with flavors of cherries alongside hints of chamomile and anise.
All in all, this wine absolutely lived up to the hype. Of all of the wines that I have had the opportunity to drink, this was one of the very rare ones that combined an intricate delicateness with vivid flavors. What is more, the wonderful combination of fresh fruit flavors and earthy, herbal tones was mesmerizing.
If I never try a Bartolo Mascarello Barolo again, I’ll be satisfied, as this was a superlative wine. Fortunately, we were able to pick up a bottle of the 2007 Bartolo Mascarello Dolcetto d’Alba recently, and I very much look forward to trying that. Yes, it’s not in the same league as the Barolo, but I believe that with this winemaker in particular you can rest assured that every wine you have the opportunity to try will speak vividly of its authenticity. In tasting these wines you’ll be able to gain a sense of both where the grapes were grown and who produced the wine.
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