An update from Barolo...

By Antonio Galloni

Market Trends

The market for Barolo worldwide continues to be soft although on my most recent trip producers told me that demand is beginning to pick up in the US while they still face difficulties in the continental European markets, especially Germany. I found the mood among producers to be fairly optimistic even though some are worried about the ability of the US market to absorb the 2001 wines after all of the hype and interest surrounding 2000. Estates have the benefit of being able to be patient with their 2001s as many will have little, if any, 2002 Barolo to offer. Quite a few wineries will deliberately hold off on releasing some of their 2001s in order to smooth their revenues over the next few years. Recent weakness in the euro should benefit producers and US consumers alike.

Overproduction Rears its Ugly Head

As has been well documented, Piedmont experienced a tremendous economic boom which started in the early 1990s, when the great 1989 and 1990 vintages first brought the region to the attention of a global public. After the troubled 1991-1994 harvests, Piedmont saw an unprecedented string of outstanding vintages from 1996 to 2001. With their newfound prosperity, producers engaged in massive construction and renovation projects of their cellars and bid prices for choice vineyards to astronomical levels. Consumers saw prices increase dramatically, notwithstanding the relative strength of the US dollar during most of this period.

One of the positive results of this economic boom was the growth of the number of small producers bottling their own wines rather than selling their fruit or wines in bulk. Within a few years, ambitious, quality minded producers exploded onto the global market with first class wines.

Unfortunately the newly-found cachet of the wine business continues to attract those driven not by passion but rather by purely financial goals. Some newcomers seem to have taken the attitude than they can simply slap the name of any vineyard on a wine bottle, and voila, they have a “cru” Barolo which can command top dollar. Nothing could be further from the truth. On my most recent trip I tasted far too many insipid, not to mention poorly made wines, which threaten to tarnish the reputation of the entire area.

The Barolo region, once rich in forests and fruit trees has
now been almost completely taken over by vines. As
veteran producer Tino Colla told me “back in the 1960s
there was no significant price difference between various
grapes, so landowners planted each varietal in the areas
that gave the best results. Today we have planted Nebbiolo everywhere, in places our ancestors would have never dreamed of.” Not even the name of a first-rate vineyard on a bottle is a guarantee anymore, as even in top crus Nebbiolo has been planted in what are frankly horrible exposures, ill-suited to the cultivation of Nebbiolo.