Barbera Supreme: The best non-bank-breaking way to taste Piedmont wine

From Portland Press Herald, March 30, 2011

By Joe Appel

Piedmont, in Italy’s northwestern corner, is best known enologically as the home of Barbaresco and Barolo, the so-called queen and king, respectively, of Italian wine, made with the legendarily site-specific Nebbiolo grape. Typically, Barbaresco and Barolo cost quite a bit of money and aren’t ready to drink for years if not decades after bottling.

Although a great aged Barbaresco or Barolo is one of the finest things on the planet (I hear), there’s a much wallet- and palate-friendlier option that calls Piedmont home: Barbera. There’s no single way to describe Barbera, because it takes so many forms, from unoaked versions that are light, fresh and brightly acidic to dark, oak-aged, grilled and complicated affairs.

The former are perfect for thin-crust pizza or Tuesday-night pasta and marinara (Barbera’s naturally high acidity goes toe to toe with surprisingly difficult to pair tomatoes), while the deeper expressions are spectacular with herb-rubbed roasts and spicy sausages. Young Barbera is also a close second to Gamay as the best red wine for Chinese food; it’s a delicious combination but only if you’re cooking Chinese at home since Portland hasno good Chinese restaurants.

Accessible options for the lighter style of Barbera include spring-perfect Castelvero Barbera 2008 ($9 to $10, Pine State) and the more dark cherry and grill smoke accentedSan Silvestro Barbera Otone 2009 ($9 to $10, National). These are terrific after a nice 30-minute refrigerator ride, by the way: cooling them highlights their soft tannins and bright red fruits.

On the deep, dark and chewy side, I’m begging you: Drink the brilliant Perrone Barbera d’Asti Tasmorcan 2009 ($17, SoPo), packed with spice and tobacco. Also, I’ve previously praised the Vietti Barbera D’Asti Tre Vigne 2008 ($15, Wicked), a gamey gem that stays playful and bright.

And now, near the end of this column, comes the main reason I wanted to write it: Michele Chiarlo Barbera d’Asti Le Orme 2008 ($13 to $14, Nappi). It’s fermented in stainless steel, which retains the Barbera’s natural brightness and vibrant red fruits, but there’s a loamy, mushroomy quality that’s akin to a gentle Pinot Noir. Indeed, it’s this gentleness that is the most thrilling thing about it.

This is because the challenge to makers of lively, acidic reds like Barbera is to calm down their wines and bring harmony to their expression while retaining what makes them so exciting. With its slightly schizoid personality – jumpy and childlike, but also soft and introverted – Barbera risks imbalance.

The innovation of winemaker Michele Chiarlo – he started the winery in 1956 and hails from a family that has been growing grapes in Piedmont for seven generations – was to introduce the stabilizing/softening/creaming influence of malolactic fermentation to Barbera. He was among the first to do this, in 1970, and it effected a revolution in quality.

Michele’s son Stefano (trained as an enologist, he’s the vineyard manager and along with his brother Alberto is in line to take the reins from Michele) told me Le Orme is “a feminine wine: soft, delicate, elegant.” There’s an almost extravagant level of integration and harmony, but with no lack of pop, and it can go anywhere coming warmer months will suggest: pizza on the grill, fish with tomatoes and olives, lazy-afternoon charcuterie.

The Chiarlos are that rare thing in the world: an integration of classicism and innovation. Stefano told me, “The identity of the soil is important. Consumers now understand this; they’re looking for something particular. So winemakers must preserve a personal style based on where they are, and then when you make a choice you are sure; you don’t experiment.”

That doubt-free state is most ably attained with the Chiarlos’ single-vineyard Barbera, La Court 2004 ($42), a magnificent, large-oak-barrel-fermented jewel from Nizza Monferrato, the pre-eminent cru of Barbera d’Asti. Stefano calls this “a serious sacrifice,” because the Chiarlos prune so assiduously, there’s an entire vine’s worth of grapes in a single bottle. This is what I call Old Soul wine, and although the price is relatively high, it’s a bargain. The profile is earthy and powerful from the bottom up, with damp cigar leaf, cinnamon, toffee and mocha.

There’s also their unique, symphonic 2006 Barbaresco, the Reyna ($35), floral and herbal and anise-flecked, that you could spend a whole night just smelling; and a Gavi (Piedmont’s undeservedly little-known indigenous white wine, thrilling with asparagus of all things, as well as white fish) crackling with white pepper and minerals. With insufficient space to describe them, I’ll just urge you to start your Chiarlo friendship with the Barberas and move on from there.

For dessert or apertif, though, you need to know this right away – as I’ve written about before (available at my blog), Piedmont is also the birthplace of Moscato d’Asti, and Chiarlo produces an exceptional one: the Nivole 2008 ($13 to $14).

Apricots, pears and peaches burst out of the glass, mousse-y in texture and raked by fine bubbles. Five percent alcohol, sunny and sweet and shimmering and alive, it comes with a free patio or bowl of ice cream – your choice.

 

The Classic Southern Rhône Wines of Perrin & Fils

Reprinted from soulofwine.com

Perrin wines are rather unassuming at first glance. Not flashy. But they’re often brilliant, sometimes mind-rocking, always interesting. You owe it to the classic, gracious, stately side of yourself to drink these wines.

From Portland Press Herald, March 16, 2011

We tend to seek out the new in whatever realms we drift in, partly because it’s exciting and partly for ego upgrade. Be it pop stars, gadgets, politics or wine-and-food, we restless postmoderns like our hunts. But excitement for excitement’s sake is simply distraction, and as for the delusion that the self is ennobled by striving, Google Buddha’s Four Noble Truths. Today I’ll raise a flag for intimacy with the not-so-new.

Where else can one’s mind go when considering (and tasting) the wines of the Perrin family? The Perrins have been making wine in the France’s Southern Rhône since 1909, so well and so consistently that the familiar labels may fail to set your heart aflutter as it peruses your local shop or wine list. Comes a time, though, when your heart matures, and gains the ability to flutter at ever subtler stimuli. Perrin & Fils wines are for such subtle hearts, and for drinkers who are good with elegance, patience, harmony and class. That they bear little blast of trendiness might make them seem less relevant to you, but in fact it makes them more so.

The Southern Rhône is profoundly rural France, rustically Provençal in character though not in a touristy way (very windy, spotty wi-fi). In the Northern Rhône, the red wines come from Syrah alone; in the south there are 13 possible varietals blended according to demands of terroir and winemaker preference, and the best wines reflect that freewheeling provenance. But only disciplined winemakers are going to be able to wrest the graceful soul from such hodgepodgey origins.

Perrin wines express that soul, while staying true to the olive-oil/garlic/wild-herbs personality of the region. Most are brisk, spicy, and rocky, reminiscent of open fires and tough old clothes wind-blown ragged and caked in dust. Perrin holds some of the oldest vineyards in France, which have hosted vines brought from the Phoenicians and Greeks. It’s the real deal.

And it comes across in a stunning variety of wines, starting with the Vielle Ferme line, through the Perrin Reserves and Crus, all the way up to Châteauneuf-du-Pape standard-bearer Château de Beaucastel. The range itself is part of what’s so interesting, because it invites you into a relationship with the family and a certain outlook.  (The winemakers still have Perrin for a surname, into the fifth generation now coming up).

Maybe that’s what we’re truly seeking when we hunt for “the new”: a relationship with something real, somewhere real, real people. We find this relationship so rarely that we look and look again, restlessly; with the Perrins you can rest.

You’ve probably seen the Vielle Ferme 2009 ($8, or $13 for the 1.5L size) the last time you stopped at a moderately well-stocked convenience store, which is part of what’s remarkable about it. The Perrins don’t own the Luberon properties that produce these wines, but manage the vineyards. The white surprised me most, because I’d remembered it as excessively fruity. The 2009 was somewhat floral but very clean (it sees no oak), flinty and green-appley, above all alive. The red (same price) is almost maddeningly easy. Something naughty made me want to find flaws but there aren’t any; it’s a perfectly balanced blend of half Grenache and the rest Syrah, Carignan and Cinsault, just perfect for don’t-think-about-it occasions.

Perrin Réserve Côtes-du-Rhône Rouge 2009 ($12) is the best intro to red Côtes-du-Rhône I can think of, pure and straightforward. It hits all the right notes — licorice, spearmint, twigs, moderate spice — with none of the overbearing twang that sometimes plagues CdR. The Côtes-du-Rhône Villages 2009 ($14) is a huge step up, due to different vineyards that permit more Syrah. My notes from a few weeks ago have a lot of exclamation marks, but I just remember how prime the fruit is, like cherries or a red plum in July: that succulent, that oozing, that vital, that smooth.

For me the best values, though, are two of the Perrin Crus. The crus are the myriad vineyard-specific wines that express the deepest soul of the Southern Rhône, and Pierre Perrin is a master at finding and developing the sites. TheCairanne 2007 ($23) is extraordinary, from a site near Gigondas: packed with spice, soft and voluptuously feminine, figgy and deep. 2007 Rhône has already been called a vintage for the ages, and while the Cairanne is singing right now, buy a few bottles because in just 2-4 years it’ll be singing from even deeper down. The Vinsobres 2006 ($20), from the northernmost Southern Rhône village, is more upright, with liqueur-y body, mocha and teriyaki, robust.

The Réserve Côtes-du-Rhône Blanc 2009 ($10) is quite round while remaining fresh and almost evanescent; I liked it fine, though it was only when I tasted Perrin whites in the >$30 range (Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc Roussanne Vielles Vignes 2007, $165, call my name!) that I really found the same strength of character the reds offer up so effortlessly.

I haven’t even touched on the Beaucastel wines, frankly because they cost a good deal of money and are made for cellaring which most of you don’t do. If you’re wealthier and more patient than I assume, then puh-leeze: buy theCoudoulet de Beaucastel Côtes-du-Rhône 2008 ($31), a savory, opulent, gamey wine draped in wet wool, smoke, jus and currant. It’s almost as intricate and Johnny-Cash-like as the Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2007 ($96, a bottle of squid ink and truffles you should drink when your newborn finishes med school), but more open to friendship.