2003 Barbaresco

"Elegance whispers and opulence shouts," said Angelo Gaja, trying to describe the difference between Barbaresco and Barolo. "Opulence is easy to perceive, but the elegant character of Barbaresco is much more difficult to describe. " Gaja described 2004 as "a big crop, and especially large for growers who did not do a green harvest. " The 2005 harvest brought a much lower crop level, and Gaja picked all of his Barbaresco nebbiolo prior to the early October rains. (This fact was confirmed by some of his neighbors who were caught with a portion of their fruit hanging. ) IWC readers with long memories will recall that Gaja told me a few years back that he doubted he would make his cru bottlings from the hot 2003 harvest. In the end, he did offer these wines, but in very limited quantities. "We essentially conducted three harvests in 2003 [beginning on September 12th in Barbaresco], and we eventually kept just 38% to 45% of the fruit, depending on the site. " As always, my mini-marathon at Gaja went by too quickly, as I tasted a number of sensational bottlings. Production here has been a stable 350,000 bottles in recent years. Incidentally, in the '03, '04 and '05 vintages, Gaja added about 5% barbera to his crus from the Barbaresco area, with the Sperss getting 6% barbera and the Conteisa 8%.

In the challenging 2003 vintage Gaja proves once again that he is at the very top of his game and shows just how far ahead he is from the pack. “It is a strange vintage. At first the wines showed very little color, but then the barriques helped stabilize the color. You know how we producers can be, sometimes we overestimate a vintage, sometimes we underestimate it,” says Gaja. “In the end our biggest advantage in 2003 was being able to rely on the experience of winemaker Guido Rivella who has been with us since 1970 and is one the very few people who knows how to handle such difficult conditions.” Clearly the vintage plays into Gaja's strength, especially with his single-vineyard wines from Barbaresco which contain a small percentage of Barbera, a varietal that flourishes in hot weather. It is often the case that in hot vintages the differences between vineyards are less evident, but these 2003s are quite representative of their sites and readers will find that Gaja captured the hallmark expression of each wine despite the super-ripe style of the vintage. That said, this year, as in 2001, it is the Barbaresco that enjoys an especially strong showing. While it is impossible to refer to any of these wines as a “value” the qualitative difference between the Barbaresco and the single-vineyard wines is not as evident as prices might suggest. Winemaking here is rooted in both traditional and contemporary styles. Fermentation and maceration typically last about 15-20 days. The wines are aged for one year in barriques to set color, and then are moved to large casks where they complete their wood aging. Today the Nebbiolos contain a small amount of Barbera (between 5%-8%) which helps give the wines their distinctive personalities. Although the Gaja wines can be quite appealing when they are young, they have also proved to improve dramatically with a few years of bottle age and especially in structured vintages such as 2001 the wines will require quite a bit of patience.