The 2018 Barolos, Part 2

BY ANTONIO GALLONI | OCTOBER 18, 2022

Two thousand and eighteen remains a mixed vintage that reflects the challenges of a growing season marked by heavy spring rains, intense summer heat and unbalanced weather during the final phase of ripening. There are some gorgeous 2018s out there, but finding them will take a bit of work. The best 2018s are beautifully perfumed, mid-weight Barolos that will drink well early.

This report focuses mostly on late 2018 Barolo releases. Readers who want to learn more about the growing season and the events that shaped the vintage might want to revisit my article The Enigma of 2018 Barolo, published earlier this year. In short, my general view of 2018 has not changed. This is a chaotic vintage marked by tremendous heterogeneity in both styles and overall quality caused by problematic conditions throughout the growing season.  

Bruno and Alice Pressenda at their Ca’ di Press winery in Perno.

Piedmont’s Golden Age

Leaving the 2018s aside for a moment, this is an exciting time to be exploring the wines of Piedmont. Sure, some labels have ascended into the stratosphere in terms of pricing, but they remain anomalies. In my view, average quality across the region has never been higher. As I looked over the producers featured in this article, I could not help but notice how many are making better wines than ever before, even with 2018 thrown into the mix. The emergence of new estates has injected a level of youthful energy and enthusiasm that has not been seen since the early 1990s, when the modernist movement was starting to take off. Lastly, thus far Piedmont has been a net beneficiary of climate change as witnessed by the greater frequency of good to great vintages.

It wasn’t always that way. In fact, all of this has happened only within the last 25 years or so. One of the highlights of my youth was the annual family vacation I took with my parents and sister. My parents worked brutal hours building their business. But every year they took a few weeks off. Most years we travelled to Italy. Naturally, the priority was visiting relatives. Once that was arranged, my sister and I took turns choosing a new destination to explore. She is the intellectual, so she took us places like Rome and Florence. Me, not so much. I mean, I appreciate the art cities, of course, but I wanted to eat and drink. So, when it was my turn we headed straight to Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont.

In 1997, we traveled to Piedmont, a region I had wanted to visit for years. I already loved the wines, the mystique of Nebbiolo and all the history around it. We stayed in a small farmhouse in the hills outside Canelli, in the heart of Moscato country. Each day we ventured to a new village. I was hooked. By 2000 I was living in Italy and spending much of my free time in the Langhe. That was just twenty years ago, nothing, and yet Piedmont was such a different place than it is today.