PRODUTTORI del BARBARESCO

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VINTAGE REPORT

2006 - The vintage 2006 had a good start with nice spring weather; the first part of the month of May was particularly hot causing an early flowering around May 25th instead that at the very beginning of June as it is more usual. Temperatures dropped down in June, but without causing particular delays in flowering or fruit set therefore creating the conditions for a larger than average crop.

July was again very hot and dry. The first part of August was instead much cooler than expected, but without the heavy rainfall that created problems in other parts of Italy. It was indeed a dry summer and in fact the best exposed vineyards (warmer and drier) experienced some stress by temporary lack of water. Summer thinning of the crop was more than usual crucial and a particular care was given in bringing down the large crop to a more balance quantity, in the months of July and August.

Overall we arrived at the beginning of September with very healthy grapes and high sugar levels, thanks to the hot and dry summer climatic conditions. For the same reason, the ripening of colour and aromas was proceeding at a slower pattern. September weather remained warm and summery with the exception of two heavy rainfalls. The first one arrived around September 10th and actually helped the final rush of ripening. The latter hit the area right before the harvest on September 25th and 26th and had the opposite effect. It did not spoil in any manner the quality of the crop, but it made worthless waiting any further. Therefore we let the grapes dry and started the harvest on September 29th: It lasted 9 days until October 7th under favourable climatic condition.

2006 will be a very good vintage for Barbaresco with full bodied wines, intense colour and good acidity: an excellent long living wine that follows the good pattern of the previous vintages of 2004 and 2005.

2005 - The 2005 growing season has been an unusual one, but overall quite good. Early summer has been hot and June temperatures have been quite higher than the average. First part of July was unusually "nice and cool" while in the second half the heat was back and intense.
Oddly in August we did not have the "hot and humid" weather that brings the all country to the beaches: a relatively cool and nice August, drier than in other regions of Italy. So the grapes arrived at the beginning of September in good condition, carefully thinned during the summer by the growers, ready for the final rush.

September, always the crucial month, started odd, with few days of rain; it soon got back in a summery pattern with hot days and also warm nights, humidity still pretty high.
Because of the lack of chilly and brisk morning, grape skins did not grow thick. So the grapes were in good condition, sugar pretty high, nice ripening of colour and aromas, but the risk of bunch - rot if rain would have come, was high. That's why the decision was taken at the last minute… to rush through the harvest and get done with it without taking any chance. Harvest started on September 24th and by September 30th crushing was over: sure enough it started raining on October 2nd and rained for a week! At that point though, the must was already nicely fermenting, safe in the cellar and we could look with great expectation to another excellent vintage for Barbaresco.

2004 - The 2004 season has been a "smooth" one for the grapes of Barbaresco, neither too hot or to cold, with average spring rainfall and a relatively dry summer. After the awkward 2002 and 2003 vintages (being the 2002 season very wet and the 2003 very hot and dry) the 2004 was "uneventful" and easy, with nice flowering and fruit - set and therefore resulting in a larger than average crop. Because of that, growers have been very careful all through the summer with severe thinning of the crop in order to have, at the beginning of September a fairly balanced production in the vineyards.

The once again beautiful September weather, warm days and cool nights, allowed a nice ripening of the colour and aromatic compounds, as well as a good sugar accumulation. Harvest started late for the Produttori del Barbaresco, on October 8th with healthy grapes and very good figures. Ratio between skins and juice was more in favour of the latter, which sometimes means a "diluted" vintage: the high level of sugar, colour and fenolic compounds, though, were a good indication of excellent quality. Rain come after October 20th with 80% of the crop already in; nevertheless even the grapes picked after the rain showed good numbers, a proof of the healthy character of the crop itself. 2004 vintage will be a very good one; like most of the late harvesting vintages will show intense flavours and rich fruit; maybe not as tight and tannic as the low producing vintages of 1999 and 2001; more similar to the rich and powerful 1990.

2003 - How will the 2003 Barbaresco be? First of all we can say that ten years ago we will have described such a vintage as "one of a kind"; today it is the last of a sequence that started in 1997 and continued with the year 2000: all these vintages have in common a very hot summer which means early picking. In 2003 the harvest in Barbaresco for the Nebbiolo grapes started on September 22nd and ended on September 28th: one of those rare vintages when we do not pick in October at all!
"Hot vintages" normally produce wines with high alcohol content (above 14% by vol.), powerful and ripe fruit with aromas of black cherry and spices. Tannins are relatively soft and the low acidity enhances this softness even more. 2003 is no exception.

On the other side of the coin hot vintages are not particularly generous with colour and complexity: plenty of fruit, but in order to develop the layers of flavours and the intensity of colour, one's needs the long sunny autumn days with cold nights. At the end of the first winter we can say that the 2003 Barbaresco shows a brilliant colour and a nice, fragrant and open fruit, if not too complex.
So what we have here is an excellent vintage, not a classic "tannin monster", but a rich, voluptuous Barbaresco, quite drinkable in its youth and capable of 12 - 15 years of ageing in the bottle.

2002 - The 2002 vintage is defined by four major events, two on the negative and two on the positive side. The two bad ones have been a very wet summer and a severe hail storm at the beginning of September in part of the Barolo region.
The yearly rainfall in 2002 was of 1900 mm.(75 inches) against an average year rainfall of 700 mm. (27.6 inches)! The hail hit some of the best Barolo vineyards on September 4th definitively compromising an already difficult vintage. However, two thirds of the Barolo area and the all Barbaresco Region were not hit by the hail at all.
The first of the two positive facts was a spectacular break in the rainy season from September 7th to October 14th: 5 weeks of warm, dry days, chilly nights and bright skies that really helped Nebbiolo, a late harvest grape, to make up for the bad summer, while other earlier picking grapes just could not make it.

Second fact was the dramatic reduction in the size of the crop, 35% down from the average quantity, because of the difficult weather pattern and thanks to the severe crop thinning done by most of the growers all through the summer months.
Thanks to these last two facts the Nebbiolo was picked by mid - October , in a very good shape and with good figures: it will not be one of the "vintage of the century", but the 2002 Barbaresco will be very good, definitely better than what everybody could hope by the end of August!

2001 - Another great vintage for Barbaresco? Certainly a very good one!
Winter: not much snowfall, but more rain that the few previous years. The good water supply and a warmer than usual end of March helped and early start for bud - break of the nebbiolo grapes, a bud break that was very even all along the vine - cane.
Spring: the most dramatic weather event was a short but intense hail storm on April 16th, localized in San Rocco Seno d'Elvio and the bordering areas of the village of Treiso. An hailstorm so early in the season normally will not effect the quality of the crop, simply reducing the amount of shoots and therefore grapes. Perfect May weather helped a strong growth of the canopy, even in the vineyards damaged by the hail; flowering took place with good climatic condition, the last week of May, earlier compared to the average timing, which is first week of June.
Summer: June and July were not as hot as normally expected; the real hot and humid weather did not occur until the second half of August (when usually it starts to cool off) and lasted until mid - September. These weather conditions, together with the good water supply from the winter months, slowed down the aromatic evolution increasing the berries size.
Fall: harvest began on October 2nd, a week before than what was expected: the right balance among sugar, acidity, aromas and colour arrived sooner and the feeling was that waiting any longer it would have done no good. Dry and sunny condition remained steady all through the harvest.
Even if right at harvest time, the grapes looked healthy and with good sugar and phenolic contents, the final judgement on the vintage was postponed of few months to better evaluate the final result: there was some concern about the actual concentration of fruit in the grapes, but we can now say that the 2001 wines show beautiful aromas and flavour, in the same league with the previous great vintages of Barbaresco.

2000 - A very good start for the new millenium, a sixth consecutive good vintage for Barbaresco!
It has been an unusual year, weather wise: a quite mild winter with very little snowfalls leaded to an early start of the growing season at the end of March. A very warm and rainy spring, made vineyard spraying against leaves diseases, particularly downy mildew, difficult and crucial. July, then, was unseasonably cold, the coolest of the last 100 years!, though totally dry. Heat arrived late, in the second half of August and stayed here well into September; featuring high day and night temperatures.
This rather late summer caused some problems to the early ripening grapes, because of excessive heat in the final stages of maturation, but generally was beneficial to the later varieties, particularly Nebbiolo, which is more resistant to weather variations and can take advantage of the October sunshine.
Despite the anticipations for an early harvest, like it was for other grapes or in other regions, in Barbaresco it was worthwhile to wait a little longer and start the harvest on September 29th, even if the sugar levels were already quite high a week before.
The extra time allowed a better concentration of aromas and phenols. Harvest was over by October 12th, few days before a period of very heavy rains that did not affect the vintage at all. Overall wines are showing high alcohol levels, good colors, fine complex aromas, just in the same league with the previous ones: the sequence of great vintages seems never ending!

1999: overall another very good vintage for Barbaresco.
The early part of the season was nice and favoured a perfect flowering at the beginning of June with dry, warm and bright days.
Unfortunately on June 14th a bad rainstorm hit the region: just for few minutes the hills were splashed with heavy rain that in some areas started out as hail. Hailstorm here are normally very brief and localized: this time it hit the South-West part of the village of Barbaresco and it was more "wet" (mixed with water) in the northern part.
Other villages in the DOCG area were not effected. Loss of crop varied from 80% to 20% depending on the different hillside.
When hailstorms arrives so early in the season the actual quality-damage is never as bad as it may appear: clusters are still undeveloped and green; the hitten berries dry out and fall; after a couple of weeks growth re-starts normally. The major effect is a reduction in the size of the crop, which, as we know, is not bad at all.
The one crucial condition for a good recover from an hail storm is good summer weather and this is what happened in 1999: despite some days of high humidity in the air, most of the summer was rainless and September remained very dry. Harvest started at the Produttori on October 1st and weather remained ideal all through the month.
The last crop of the century brought us Nebbiolo grapes of excellent quality, that are giving intensely coloured and balanced wines in the same league with the splendid previous vintages.

1998 a fantastic "four in a row" ! Another great vintage on the hills of Barbaresco after the beautiful 1995 and the extraordinaty 1996 and 1997. Never in the past we had such an array of excellence!
1998 growing season has been very similar to the 1997, with a hot summer and a quite dry fall which resulted in a perfectly healthy, ripe crop. The average sugar level was a bit lower than the super-ripe 1997, and the good acidity will give very balanced wines.
Already now, after few months the new wines are showing beautiful colours, ripe tannins, intense flavours: just the perfect start for a new great vintage.

1997: Although the grapes are barely of the vines, this vintage is already being talked about as one of the vintages of the century.
A very mild and dry late winter caused 15 days of anticipation for bud-break. The season continued in the same pattern and brought to a very early harvest (started in Barbaresco on September 20 and finished on October 3rd).
The result was a very healthy crop, super-ripe that will offer wines in the same league with the 1990s.

1996: Very similar weather pattern compared to the 1995 vintage. A cooler than usual August was followed by 20 gorgeous days in September with brisk temperatures at night and very hot sunny days: a perfect situation for a small crop to ripen properly and develop thick skin and great concentration of flavours. Some rain at the end of September did not spoil the quality of this beautiful vintage.
Thanks to the cool summer temperatures and the late ripening (harvest started on October 7 and ended on the 23rd) the wines are full bodied and show great colour, great fruit and smooth tannins. All of the good qualities of the 1995 vintage are reflected in this Barbaresco, but with more concentration.

1995: A cooler than usual summer, but a beautiful end of September and October that gave a good final push to the ripening of a crop that was 30% lower than average in quantity.
Good colour and very nice fruit and soft tannins that make the 1995 Barbaresco intense, rich, fairly approachable and quite similar to the quality of the 1988 vintage.

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