Once upon a time in Barolo, there was a battle for the future of the appellation. In one corner, stood the traditionalists, lead by Bartolo Mascarello, Giuseppe Rinaldi and Bruno Giacosa, among many others. In the modern camp, you had Domenico Clerico, Roberto Voerzio, Chiara Boschis and most famously, Elio Altare, and who took a chainsaw to his family’s large oak casks in the cellar to make room for smaller French oak barriques.
Despite the region’s storied past with winemaking, Barolo in the 1980s — and to a lesser extent Barbaresco — had a reputation for gruff tannins and overpowering structure and aging the wines an additional 5, 10 or even 20 years was seen as mandatory. The increasingly international wine market, however, was moving at a much faster pace, which the modernists were trying to address. “How can we make Barolo more accessible in youth?” they pondered. To the traditionalists’ ears, this sounded more like “how can we make Barolo taste like every other red wine on the market?”
“I think everyone’s learned from those days when it was all-or-nothing, black-and-white, that there can be a lot of gray, but for the better.”
Anna Savino
Barolo Wine Club
You can see how this would lead to a bitter divide.
A popular 2014 documentary called Barolo Boys spells out the time period in vivid detail, and examines the lasting impacts. Barolo and Barbaresco would never be the same after this period of vintages in the ’80s and ’90s, and while no one side outright won “the war,” the international phenom that is today’s Barolo and Barbaresco wines owes a debt of gratitude to ideas from both camps.
However, in many ways, the lore surrounding the traditional and modern divide has reinforced a duality that really isn’t there any more. (It is not unlike people asking about Merlot’s relevance today, simply because Paul Giamatti’s Miles screamed his hatred for it in Sideways 20 years ago). Today’s producers are much more concerned about climate change and how their treatment of fermentation and aging can best highlight Barolo’s terroir given these new conditions.
Various scenes from Barolo. ©Kevin Day/Opening a BottleA Local’s Perspective
Anna SavinoSomeone who discusses this trend on nearly a daily basis is Anna Savino, the founder of the Barolo Wine Club, and Italianna Tours.
In 2004, she moved to Piedmont, where she now lives with her Italian husband and partner, Claudio, and their children. Together, she and Claudio have built a wine club that seeks out up-and-coming and rare vintages from the area for her American clientele. She also offers local tours, both for consumers and wine schools.
Meeting with producers on a week-to-week basis affords her exceptional access to what’s driving the future of Barolo, Barbaresco and the wines of greater Piedmont. As a result, we’ll be launching a series of conversations for my Nebbiolo Fan Club column, which is generally reserved for paying subscribers. This interview will stay free, so everyone can get a sense for the depth of Italian wine coverage on Opening a Bottle, and so more people can be introduced to Anna and the work she does.
Our first topic, is the lay of the land on where traditional and modern styles stand in today’s climate.
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Defining Traditional Barolo and Modern Barolo
Kevin Day: Let’s start with definitions of the two “schools of thought.”
Anna Savino: Most people think of traditional versus modern as being about just barrel size for aging. That is obviously one of the factors: “traditional” pertaining to the botti, these big Slavonian oak barrels that are made by steaming and are therefore neutral. Then for the “modern” style, you have the barrique, which would be small, 225 mL French oak barrels with newer, toasted wood.
But there’s so much more to what is modern and traditional than just the barrel. When I was working at G.D. Vajra many years ago — around 2012, 2013 — people got so caught up on this. People were really interested in the debate at that time, and I remember people walking in and saying, “Oh, I see. I thought you were traditionalist. But I see barriques in there.”
It’s like, “okay, yes, but we need all sizes because the volume varies from year to year and you need to top-up the barrels …”
Kevin Day: Plus, Barbera usually goes in barrique, too, correct?
Anna Savino: Exactly. Because of that, you can’t just judge based on the size of the barrels in the cellar.
So the other really important thing from that time period was the idea of green harvesting and dropping fruit to get more concentration into fewer grape clusters. You have to remember that the Langhe was such a poor, poor area for so long. You can imagine, even today, the older generations have a hard time being wasteful. It was almost sacrilegious that these grapes were just being left on the ground. And so this was huge, and I think equally just as important in the modern versus traditional conversation.
A hallmark of tradition. Large botti (oak casks), such as these at Oddero, offer a slower maturation of the wine and no influence of oaky flavors or tannins. ©Kevin Day/Opening a Bottle
An example of barrique barrels at a Barolo winery. Pictured here is Vietti, who uses them for Barbera and — once well used and no longer impactful with oaky tannins — on the Langhe Nebbiolo. ©Kevin Day/Opening a BottleKevin Day: Well, that seems to suggest that traditional is a mindset, and modernism is mindset. It’s not so much a technique. Would you say that’s true?
Anna Savino: Exactly. So that’s a good point. Green harvesting was part of the modern mindset at that time, but so was something as simple as temperature-controlled tanks. Some of the old traditionalists didn’t even have that technology in their cellar. The traditionalists were using a large conical-shaped cask called a tino for fermentation. Now, everybody uses temperature controls. The tini that are used for fermentation, they’re better quality, they’re cleaner, and they have temperature control attached to them. So it’s more of a middle ground.
And that brings us to maceration times. Traditional would entail very long macerations from 30 to 40 days, whereas the modernists who came in the 1980s started using the roto-fermenters for the fermentation. And that maceration was usually a very short period, because they’re using higher temperatures and extracting for only maybe five to seven days. So you’re getting all the sweeter, less bitter tannins, and more of the fruit coming through.
The Philosophies Today
Kevin Day: How wide ranging are maceration times for Barolo these days? As you said, it used to be the difference between a week and 40-plus days. Is there a standard now that most producers follow or is it still a pretty wide spectrum?
Anna Savino: There are fewer and fewer wineries that are strictly modern. But I’d say on average, the maceration time at many of the wineries I’ve been visiting seems to be around 20 to 25 days. It is somewhere in the middle, especially if they’re using just stainless steel tanks.
But we are also seeing a mix now of traditional producers who are using big French oak barrels — or those from Gamba — but still made in a light toast or neutral way. And we’re seeing in the old modernist wineries, little by little, more and more of the larger oak casks coming back in, either as an experiment, or for a certain single-vineyard wine. So there’s a lot of mixing, going back and forth, and it’s fun. It’s nice to see. I think everyone’s learned from those days when it was all-or-nothing, black-and-white, that there can be a lot of gray, but for the better.
Kevin Day: It’s also hard to tell what’s fashionable in terms of changing the maceration times, but also what’s appropriate for climate change, right? It’s a very different time now than the 1980s and 1990s.
Anna Savino: Certainly. When you have more classic vintages that have more substance in the skins and the seeds and a later harvest, the classic vintages tend to be the ones that can macerate longer. Lately, we’ve had warmer vintages, and so maybe that’s also the reason we’re having slightly shorter maceration times from so-called traditional Barolo producers, because of the fruity nature of the grapes. But also, stylistically across the board, I think we are wanting wines that are more approachable and more drinkable. So a lot of factors go into it, but I’d say it is a middle ground now on all fronts.
Autumn colors in mid-October in the Boioio Cru below La Morra in the Barolo DOCG. ©Kevin Day/Opening a BottleKevin Day: Do you also feel like some of what’s changed is maybe generational?
Anna Savino: Oh for sure. For sure. There’s this whole new wave of producers who are starting from scratch or have traveled all over the world to work harvests. Take Rinaldi, for instance, who are among the most traditional estates. But [sisters] Martha and Carlota have been bringing in a lot of different pruning techniques in the vineyard which could be seen as new or innovative. They have a different vision now. It’s a more worldly vision, and the climate is changing, as you said. So I think the younger generations of the so-called traditionalists are very open-minded today. The whole point of the traditionalist outlook is to value the grape itself and what it’s trying to say. And as long as you are expressing the terroir and valuing that, nobody will criticize how you’re doing it.
“The whole point of the traditionalist outlook is to value the grape itself and what it’s trying to say … If you’re using barriques, you have to defend yourself a little bit more, to be like, ‘we know how to use French oak now. We don’t want to cover [the terroir] up.'”
Anna Savino
And a lot of times with the modernist wineries, it’s the younger generation that tells their mom or dad, ‘hey, can I have my own barrel on the side? Maybe a big barrel to experiment?’ I can think of Bruno Rocca in Barbaresco and Fratelli Revello, Domenico Clerico … they are using more big barrels. So it’s refreshing. It’s nice that everyone is open to trying new things with their wines. And it’s only improving. The wines are getting cleaner, more drinkable. Overall the quality is rising, and it is because that young generation is very open minded.
Kevin Day: Since you lead tours and bring Americans to these wineries, I wanted to ask you about how producers respond to all of this traditionalist-versus-modernist talk these days, because from where I sit, it is still very much embedded in our discourse and in the wine media landscape. What’s the response you get from producers when it comes up? Are they over it? Or do they still use some of that binary terminology?
Anna Savino: That’s a great question. When I’m out on tours, I hesitate to discuss the whole modern and traditionalist “war,” because I’m kind of sick of talking about it myself. But it is a part of the history.
A lot of people still ask me about the modern and the traditional, and when we go to wineries that are a part of that — especially on the modern side — I will try to tell them, “let’s not label them that way anymore.” [The producer] might mention that they are more towards a modern style, or this machine is considered more of a modern style, and producers don’t get offended by the question. They just tend not to talk about it as much.
It is interesting: I think that “modern style” does have a connotation these days. It’s not what people are looking for. If you’re using barriques, you have to defend yourself a little bit more, to be like, “we know how to use French oak now. We don’t want to cover [the terroir] up. We don’t want to make it a fruit-bomb wine for the international palette.” You do have to dig a little deeper.
On the other hand, the traditionalists still talk a lot about it: “We’re traditionalist, we’ve never changed. This is the way we’ve always done things.” So while it can be talked about with the producers, it’s not really their focus anymore.
The cedar tree crowning the Gattera cru outside La Morra is an icon of the region. ©Kevin Day/Opening a BottleWhat’s Defining Barolo Today
Kevin Day: If not modern and traditional, what trend is everyone talking about these days when it comes to influencing the quality and style of their wines?
Anna Savino: There’s quite a few trends going on. Producers are looking for anything that is a niche or a little bit different, especially if it is a more approachable style of wine with finesse, because that is leading the way right now. So with that, there is a lot more interest in the rosé clone of Nebbiolo that was once forgotten about. When a producer says, “this is 100% pure rosé clone,” that’s pretty interesting. It has a lighter color, it’s a little bit more delicate, and that is what people are looking for these days.
In the vineyard, obviously, we have to talk about climate change. That’s driving so many trends, and they’re seemingly small but very important decisions like being less aggressive with leaf cutting and leaving a little bit more canopy to not expose the grapes too much, maybe waiting a little longer to make decisions, or less green harvest. Those who used to be pretty heavy on green harvesting are either waiting a little longer or leaving a few more bunches of grapes on the vine to get more balance. There is also the trend of preserving more cover crop in between the rows, to keep it fresher and cooler. And you know, people want lower-alcohol wines now, especially with something like Dolcetto. I think people are trying to go back a little bit to have those really light, 12% alcohol Dolcettos that they used to drink. All of these vineyard techniques support lower alcohol.
And then I’d say in the cellar, what I’m starting to hear from the younger generations is a desire to do as less as possible in oak barrels. It used to be with the traditional style everything was longer: 30 months in oak or even five years in oak barrels. Eighteen months is the minimum for Barolo, and it seems like some producers are doing about 18 or 20 months of oak aging. I had this conversation recently with Alberto from Crissante in La Morra. They already have these beautifully drinkable vintages, with slightly warmer years from a terroir like La Morra. And so you really don’t need to keep them as long in these big barrels anymore.
I think in the end, that’s what you get when you break free of the black-and-white traditionalist versus modernist mindset. They’re adapting to the reality in the vineyard, and doing what’s best to show the terroir.
Follow Anna Savino on Instagram: @barolowineclub.
Note: Minor parts of this interview were edited for clarity.
