2008 Barbaresco Riserva Ovello

Italy's top wine co-operative has gone from strength to strength in recent years, and the two new sets of wines I tasted in September were of consistently high quality. Yet it's the wines the Produttori will not be making that its neighbors in Barbaresco were talking about: the Produttori will not bottle its crus from vintage 2010. "There were three rains in September and they kept everything wet," explained commercial director Aldo Vacca. "The wines have good aromatics but lack extra density and thrust."No doubt other factors play a role in the Produttori's decision whether or not to bottle its crus. First off, it appears to be an all-or-nothing decision, as it is politically incorrect for the co-op to bottle some single-vineyard wines (Asili, Rabaya and Montestefano are routinely in highest demand) but not others. There is also the commercial consideration: the Produttori bottled its crus in 2007, 2008 and 2009, so releasing a full set of 2010s might have been too much for the market to absorb. Smart Barbaresco lovers, of course, will want to snap up the Produttori's 2010 Barbaresco normale.It was the 2009s and 2008s I focused on in September. Aldo Vacca described 2009 as a warm vintage with good spiciness and structure, even if the wines are less fruity than the 2008s. Production was down 25% from 2008 due to strict selection. The 2008s, he went on, are "powerful, rich and fruity wines, a bit like the 2011s. Their fruit is very sweet and they should offer a wide drinkability window." Vacca rates 2008 as his favorite vintage of the new century, but adds that 2005 is another "personal favorite." He told me that the 2008s are more drinkable today than he would have predicted early on, while the 2007s, which began with a more exotic quality, were becoming more classic--even austere--with a few years in bottle. In other words, the two vintages were moving in opposite directions.

Produttori del Barbaresco, one of the world's top cooperatives, has been making terrific wines for five decades. As good as the wines were in the past, my feeling was that at times the full potential of these sites – widely considered among the very best in Barbaresco – wasn't being fully captured. The Produttori must have thought the same thing. Beginning in 2001, the Produttori began incentivizing their member growers to cultivate higher quality grapes. At the same time, the winery began a gradual process of rotating out their large 100-hectoliter casks and replacing them with smaller French and Slavonian oak casks. The 2008 Riservas spent a total of 36 months in a combination of French and Slavonian oak casks ranging from 25 to 100 hectoliters. I have been anxiously waiting to taste the Produttori's 2008 Riservas since the end of that year's harvest, when Managing Director Aldo Vacca told me the Riservas would almost certainly be bottled. Two recent tastings of the entire lineup were more than worth the wait. Simply put, these are the very best young Riservas I have ever tasted from the Produttori. The wines will require considerable patience, but they are stacked and packed with tremendous concentration of fruit allied to structure. It is a vintage Piedmont drinkers love to love, where the individual signatures of each terroir are clearly delineated. Best of all, the Riservas remain exceedingly fairly priced considering the quality of what is in the bottle. Congratulations to Aldo Vacca, longtime oenologist Gianni Testa and the entire team at Produttori del Barbaresco for this magnificent collection of 2008 Barbareschi.