2020 Barolo: Selective Excellence

BY ANTONIO GALLONI | JANUARY 04, 2024

Grace, elegance and understatement are some of the qualities readers will find in the 2020 Barolos. The best wines are undeniably striking. That said, the vintage is not an unqualified success, as the growing season presented its fair share of challenges. Overall, 2020 is a vintage of mid-weight Barolos. These are wines to admire for their balance and seductive appeal more than their power or structure.

Alex Sanchez and Elena Brovia turned out a stellar collection of 2020 Barolos.

The 2020 Growing Season

Warm temperatures in January and February got the growing season off to a fast start. Budbreak was early. There was some frost damage in April, with losses of as much as 10-15% in some spots. Flowering began without major issues, but the arrival of colder temperatures and rain in June extended flowering. Hail in mid-June damaged vineyards in La Morra and Verduno. The rest of summer was mostly uneventful, warmer than usual, but without severe heat spikes. Of course, it must be said that the concept of what is ‘normal’ is a moving target these days. While 2020 was generally a warm year, given the context of what we know about 2023 and 2022, today, the conditions of 2020 don’t appear particularly extreme.

Monthly heat summation data, compiled by Alessandro Masnaghetti, shows that 2020 was generally a warmer year but not excessively hot by present-day standards. June and October were cooler than most years. Readers need to keep in mind that Masnaghetti’s historical average runs from 2007-2016, a period chosen because it includes a wide range of years but not a trailing period, which would be more common. © Enogea, used with permission.

A rain event forecast for early October turned out to be one of the defining moments for the vintage. Nearly 90mm of water fell between October 2 and 3, a significant amount considering annual rainfall in Barolo is around 650mm. However, rainfall, like all technical data, needs to be contextualized. In the case of rain, the amount is important, but the degree to which different soils absorb water is just as critical to understanding the value of data, why it matters, and how it might ultimately affect what is in the glass. For example, in periods of heavy downpours, the pace of rainfall can be so intense that much of the water runs off the hills and is not actually absorbed into the ground. 

Some growers chose to pick ahead of the rains, others waited it out. Naturally, these decisions were harder and more impactful for estates that had vineyards ripening in late September and early October. Producers in later-ripening districts could afford to wait and, therefore, were not forced into making especially hard decisions. Some producers reported harvest dates that were relatively compact, while others reported harvest dates that were more spread out. A number of growers spoke of making multiple passes in their vineyards, some with greater frequency than in most years. To be sure, managing physiological ripeness while avoiding excessive alcohol and also dealing with significant weather events is a complex dance. In a vintage with challenging weather, conditions impacted growers and sites to varying degrees, which also explains the different approaches producers took and the overall heterogeneity of the wines in terms of both style and quality.