Vintage Retrospective: The 1985 Barolos and Barbarescos

The subject of evaluating and rating vintages is one of the favorite topics of discussion among Piedmont lovers, so the opportunity to taste sixteen of the best 1985 Barolos and Barbarescos with a group of hardcore New York Nebbiolo fans made for a truly special evening.

Many insiders describe the 1985 vintage as a turning point for the wines.  According to Luciano Sandrone “1985 was in many ways the first ‘modern,’ hot vintage.  The Barolos were uncharacteristically open from the start and have remained accessible.”  Giacosa enologist Dante Scaglione says “1985 was the first vintage in which we had wines with very high alcohol.  In fact, we wouldn’t see such alcohol levels in our wines again until 2003.   I view 1985 as a vintage that is ready to drink and one which will not be especially long-lived going forward.”  Roberto Conterno had a slightly different take commenting that “I wouldn’t necessarily say our wines were accessible from the beginning, however today the 1985s are very expressive and it is a great vintage to drink today.”   

Because of the hot growing season and early appeal of the vintage, some have predicted that the wines would not age well.  For the most part, I was amazed at how well these Barolos showed.  Many of the wines displayed lively color, with rich, sweet fruit, and enough underlying structure to provide balance. While the wines as a group are mature, any suggestion that they are falling apart is simply not borne out by this tasting.  How long will the wines last?   That is a hard question to answer, since provenance is such a huge variable, but I think it is safe to say that for many of these wines well-stored bottles have another decade of life ahead, and perhaps more.   These 1985s offer great drinking today in a more accessible, softer style than either 1982 or 1989, the other two great vintages from the 1980s.

Unfortunately we also had a few bad bottles, which I suppose is to be expected in a tasting like this, although the percentage of corked/cooked bottles was higher than we would have liked (around 25%).  When these wines were first released fifteen years ago there simply wasn’t the kind of attention to temperature-controlled shipping that we have today and several wines appeared to have been damaged by excess heat at some point in their lives.  The biggest lesson here for consumers is that there is no substitute for buying these wines on release and cellaring them.  Doing so is the only reliable way to minimize the possibility of some very expensive disappointments at a later date.

The wines were double-decanted and served blind in flights of four.  The identity of the wines was revealed only after all of the wines had been tasted and discussed.  Tasting these wines blind with a group of passionate and knowledgeable Barolo fans was a great learning experience, but also a humbling one.   Mature Barolos are wines of extraordinary complexity and can fool even the most seasoned palates, as we would be reminded throughout the evening.

After the formal tasting was concluded, we enjoyed a delicious dinner, and finished off what was left of these spectacular wines.  We also tasted Prunotto’s 1985 Barolo Bussia, which was fresh, youthful, and delicious, although it didn’t quite reach the level of the best wines on this evening.  A great bottle of Bruno Giacosa’s 1986 Barolo Riserva Falletto followed, and it was one of the best wines of the night, prompting some of the tasters to wonder if this producer may have been more successful in 1986 than 1985.  The evening closed with the outrageous 1983 Recioto from Giuseppe Quintarelli.  While I don’t have enough experience with this wine to put it into the proper context, I will say that it was breathtaking for its complexity, balance, and sheer appeal.  At age 22 it appeared to be magically youthful, and my sense is that this is a wine whose aging potential is to be measured in decades rather than years.