Dear Barolo lover:
If you love Barolo, but not its price, here's a wine you might be interested in. I just discovered it quite by accident, researched it, found it, tasted it, loved it and bought it for the store. In fact a couple cases are headed to my own cellar. The wine - 2006 Vietti Lange Nebbiolo "Perbacco."
Vietti is the producer of world-class "cru" Barolos, ranking up there with the best producers in the Piedmont's Lange hills. Their Barolos get mid-90s ratings and sell way above $100. One of their Barolos, called "Castiglione," is a blend of various crus; it's less expensive but still scored 92 points with the 2005 vintage. It's pretty spectacular -- I had it recently at an Italian dinner party, but in researching the wine I found perhaps the best value in the entire Barolo zone -- the Vietti "Perbacco."
Perbacco is concocted from a blend of wines made from Nebbiolo grapes grown in Vietti's various Barolo cru parcels, which wines have been de-classified from "Barolo" because they didn't quite make the cut to go into the Castiglione Barolo. However, the constituent Perbacco wines have been made by all Barolo standards in terms of vineyard sites, yields, hand picking and sorting, barrel fermentation and aging; however, they were bottled two months earlier than the DOCG regulations require for Barolo. Therefore, the wine cannot technically be labeled "Barolo" and must be sold as Lange Nebbiolo.
This is the best non-Barolo/Barbaresco Nebbiolo I have ever tasted. Most wines sold as Lange Nebbiolo are made from higher-yielding non-cru parcels outside the Barolo and Barbaresco zones, are tank-fermented and bottled without wood elevation. They sell in the $20s and taste like a simple red wine with modest Nebbiolo overtones.
Because of the vineyard location and practices and the production techniques, the Perbacco tastes like a cru Barolo. The 2006 Vietti Lange Nebbiolo "Perbacco" is a Barolo for all practical purposes, lacking just two months (out of 36) of barrel aging.
Here's what Robert Parker's Wine Advocate has to say about the wine: "The 2006 Langhe Nebbiolo Perbacco is gloriously ripe and sweet, with an irresistible core of floral red fruit. This vibrant, medium-bodied wine possesses outstanding balance and also happens to be one of the world's great values. In this vintage Perbacco has a degree more muscle, structure and ripeness than either 2004 or 2005. Over the last few months the wine has put on a surprising level of weight, and it is a wine that could benefit from further bottle age. Many Barolo producers would kill for a wine like this. In a word: Awesome!!" Randall, Jennifer and I agree.
The email price of the "Castiglione" Barolo (92 pts.) is $44.99, a good price for a Barolo; the email price of the "Perbacco" (90 pts) is $24.99. Supplies are limited.
Let us know if you'd like some of this juice.
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