Nebbia

Today started, for me, with a brief walk in the vineyard surrounding our hotel, watching the sun rise through the nebbia that blanketed the town of Canale in the valley below. (Nebbia: the fog which gives the grape Nebbiolo its name.)

Barolo

After we checked out from Villa Tiboldi, we were transported to the Borgogno Winery, in the town of Barolo.

The Barolo area has been producing wine since the 1100s. There are approximately 240 hectares (about 600 acres) under cultivation and about 15 million bottles are produced each year.

Many farmers in this area (and all over Italy) were sharecroppers. It was not until the 1970s that legislation to end sharecropping was implemented, and in the 1980s, the legislature set land redistribution rules enabling former sharecroppers to own and operate their own farms. This is why so many family farms of today only got their start in the 1980s. The Borgogno family established their winery much earlier — in 1751. This long history, we learned, protected the winery from litigious French representatives from Burgundy (Bourgogne), who tried to sue the winery because of the similarity in names. The Borgogno winery could show that they were producing wines long before Bourgogne became an appellation — in 1936. Touché!

We toured the Borgogno cellars, where the wine is fermented in concrete tanks before it is transferred to large oak barrels holding between 4,500 liters and 12,000 liters. The large barrels impart a less oaky taste than smaller barrels. Barolo wines are best aged at least a few years before drinking so, beginning in the 1920s, this winery started to hold on to their bottled wines rather than sell the most recent vintages and have the customers store the wine before drinking. The winery was certified organic in 2019, and that vintage is being released this year.

Walking through this and other cellars we toured, I was always impressed with the amount of investment in infrastructure to produce these wines. I asked about the cost of the barrels and learned that just one of the 4,000-liter oak barrels cost about $100,000.

Another amusing anecdote: at some point in the past (I didn’t write down when) the winery had a run-in with the wine bureaucrats and were told that, despite following all the rules for a Barolo wine, their wines were not typical, and so they were not allowed to call their wine Barolo. In protest, the winery sold their Barolo wine with the label “No Name.” Though the bureaucrats later relented, their “No Name” wine has been so successful, they’ve kept the label and continue to sell “No Name.”

After the cellar tour, we tasted six of their wines, including a Barolo Reserve from 2016 and a blend from… 1982(!)

After our tour of the winery, we strolled through town to the Barolo Castle, where there were good views and… a rather strange wine museum.

After departing Barolo, our trip leader had the bus stop at a place where we could take in a beautiful view of the vineyards that fill the landscape here.

La Morra

After stopping in the town of Alba to check in to the hotel where we would stay for the next three nights, we went to the Marrone Vineyard and Winery near La Morra. We took a brief tour of the cellars, but this time instead of just being served several wines to taste, we had to work for our tasting. Our group would be cooking dinner that night.

Our trip leader had arranged for us to have a cooking lesson at the winery. The main course was veal cheeks, preceded by a pasta with meat sauce. I was recruited to make the sauce, while others volunteered or were recruited for other dishes.

While the sauces and veal cheeks were cooking, we finally got to have our tasing. Two wines: a Langhe Favorita and a Langhe Rosato Dolcevita.

After the tasting, it was back to work. We all made pasta for the dinner.

The pasta, once made, didn’t take long to cook, so we all sat down to dinner and to sample more of the Marrone wines. (By the way, the sauce was fabulous! Compliments to the chef!)