Barbaresco

... you know, I want, I wanted to know, I wanted to s- you know, stand in the middle of, um, I don't know, uh, you know, s- Sant Amyon and understand, you know, where the different vineyards ended.

And if I went to, you know, um, um, Piemonte, I could understand the difference between Barbaresco and Nebbiolo and-

Yeah

... you know.

I mean, uh, Barbaresco and Barolo and, and, uh, understand, like, what these things mean.

You don't really- I believe you have to go and to be able to understand, like, those types of things.

I agree.

And we were just mentioned in Wine Spectator as, um, one of the places that Federica Baffa, who's good friends of ours, she's, um, her family's five generation, four generation winemakers.

Um, they make some of the best Barolo and Barbaresco in the world, um, that our restaurant's one of her favorites to visit when she comes to the States.

So like, um, But to finish what you were asking is how I elevated it.

So back in 2018, I started going to trade shows.

So it was essentially a master that was one year in Alba in Piedmont.

So I started around Barolo, Barbaresco, those areas, pure winemaking.

So a lot of like soil chemistry, wine chemistry.

And then I started one year in Lisbon.

If you are making wine in Barbera and Barolo, I mean, yes, you can get big, full, heavy, full body, but a lot of it still is Nebbiola and Barbera still are thinner skin grapes.

Those are higher acid reds.

There is some similarity between Barolo and Barbaresco with, say, Burgundy.

Yeah, no, totally.

They would stick a wine in front of me.

I'm like, "This is Barbaresco."

[laughs]

And they'd be shocked.

Today, sometimes, uh, in my opinion, of course, uh, the base Nebbiolo are much better than some Barolo or Barbaresco, and it means that really the temperature, the weather is, is changing.

And I'm afraid that in the future, probably Nebbiolo could be not the best variety for Langhe.

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It's very challenging because, uh, in Italy we are really, uh, to connect with the, the variety, but not in term of, uh, uh, viticulture, in term of, uh, marketing and branding.

And, uh, you know that, uh, the most important wines in the world mainly are the wines where on, in the label we have the name of the area, the name of the region, the name of the terroir.

Could be Bordeaux, as you told before, uh, Champagne, Burgundy, Brunello di Montalcino, Barolo, Barbaresco, Franciacorta, or Trentodoc.

But many, many labels, many, many wines from Italy, they put the brand, the, the main brand in term of communication on the label is the variety.

So Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet, Sangiovese.