2000 Barolo Cerequio

This wine was tasted as part of Historic Piedmont: A Trip Back In Time, which takes a look at a number of older, historically significant wines from 1958 through 2000.

Roberto Voerzio's 2000s are among the most successful wines of the vintage. That's not terribly surprising given Voerzio's virtually unparalleled track record of making profound wines that can age, even in the smallest of vintages. The 2000s are only now beginning to approach their early maturity. These remain beautiful, fresh Baroli that will deliver considerable pleasure for years to come.

Roberto Voerzio's Barolos are some of the richest, deepest and most texturally beautiful wines readers will come across. This incredible tasting, which spanned 20 vintages and nearly 40 wines, provided a once in a lifetime opportunity to look at the evolution of one of the world's most talented and passionate winemakers. I was struck with nearly all the wines I sampled, but in many ways it is the Barolos from the smaller, forgotten vintages that made the deepest impression. The majority of these wines were tasted during a visit to the winery in November 2009, while a few additional bottles came from my cellar.

Roberto Voerzio had a clear idea of the wines he wanted to make from the outset, but he got a later start than most of his contemporaries because he spent the first years of his career working alongside his brother Gianni before striking out on his own in 1987. Over the years, Roberto Voerzio acquired parcels in La Morra's finest sites, giving him a collection of grand cru vineyards matched by few growers. Despite all of his success, Voerzio remains an essentially simple, down to earth person with a continuous drive to improve that is rare, even in Piedmont. Today Voerzio makes as many as seven single-vineyard Barolos. Voerzio's fanaticism informs all aspects of production, and he only bottles his wines when he is completely happy with them, so it is the rare vintage when all seven Barolos are released. A luxury Barbera from the Pozzo vineyard in the Annunziata district of La Morra made with the same rigorous low yields as the Barolos and a more affordable set of wines including a Dolcetto, Barbera and Langhe Nebbiolo round out the range.

Though often lumped in with the modern school in Barolo, Voerzio takes his greatest inspiration from the masters of the traditional school, including Bruno Giacosa, Giovanni Conterno and Beppe Rinaldi, all men he still speaks about with the highest respect and admiration. I was amazed to see Voerzio open a number of reference-point Barolos from these producers at the end of this tasting; a decidedly high risk proposition, given the icon status of those bottles. I can't think of another producer – particularly one with a relatively short track record – so willing to put everything on the line in openly comparing his wines to the acknowledged masterpieces of the region.

Voerzio is best known for fanatically low yields, which clearly inform his Barolos and is a major reason his early vintages remain fresh and intact to this day, a quality shared by many of his wines from lesser vintages as well. Twenty years ago the idea of green harvesting was still radical in Piedmont, a poor, agrarian region where cutting of bunches of grapes was seen as the equivalent of throwing money away. Voerzio was convinced otherwise and followed his instincts by pursuing a radical approach to low yields. Voerzio cuts entire bunches off his plants, the point the rows between his vineyards are literally strewn with fruit. Bunches that remain are meticulously trimmed, particularly towards the bottom and the sides of the bunch, where the harsher tannins are believed to lie. The typical triangular Nebbiolo bunch is transformed into a small, roundish shape, and yields are brought down to level previously never seen in Piedmont. Part Three – A Mature Style Emerges: 1999-2004

Beginning in 1999 Voerzio's Barolos seem to acquire an additional measure of refinement I have always admired. The wines are well-represented in my cellar, and I have never been disappointed. To be sure, these are rich, concentrated Barolos, but around this time the integration of the French oak improved and the Barolos began to take on elements of silkiness that balance the sheer opulence in the fruit.

This wine was tasted over lunch in December 2008.

"Sweetness is the key to the 2000 vintage," said Davide Asselle, who assists Voerzio in the vineyards and in the winery. While a few of these wines strike this taster as almost too ripe, with distinct aromas of surmaturite, their strength of material is indisputable. Voerzio makes Barolo from some of the tiniest yields in the region:by limiting growth to six rather small bunches per vine, he routinely produces less than a kilo of fruit per vine. Voerzio uses one-third new barriques and the rest two-, three- and four-year-old barrels, notes Asselle, who added that the percentage of new oak was reduced somewhat for the 2003s. Incidentally, Voerzio will not offer a 2003 dolcetto. The wine never finished fermenting its sugar, and Voerzio refuses to use commercial yeasts or enzymes.

While some critics of this domain fault Voerzio's very deeply colored wines for being overextracted and tannic, not to mention high in alcohol, I must confess to being genetically predisposed to Voerzio's bottles. Very low yields and complete phenolic ripeness are the keys to high quality here. Voerzio fancies the slightly jammy style of 2000 and 1997. He prunes to get just a kilo of grapes per vine, and thus, even in the large '97 harvest, crop levels were not excessive here. "A lot of '97s lacked acidity and structure due in part to the size of the crop," noted Voerzio. "Many of these wines are already in decline." Alcohol levels in the 1999s are in the 14.5% to 15% range, but there's little sign of heat in the aromas. Interestingly, Voerzio did his malolactic fermentations in barriques in '97, '98, '99 and '00 but went back to doing the secondary fermentation in stainless steel tanks in 2001. Voerzio, a longtime jazz lover, always has music blasting in the winery; on this occasion I tasted his bottled wines to the sound of Ennio Moricone's spaghetti western music - not a bad choice.