1998 Barbaresco Vanotu

Giorgio Pelissero owns 20 hectares of vines, including two parcels in the Barbaresco appellation from which he makes about 50,000 bottles in a typical year. Pelissero, who relocated to this hillside spot outside Treiso in 1994, was in the process of expanding his cellar, and bringing in dolcetto grapes, when I stopped by in mid-September. Pelissero regular Barbaresco is actually from a single vineyard in Treiso-"but Treiso doesn't have a history of single-vineyard bottlings," says Pelissero. This wine is made half in barriques(one-third of which are new) and half in larger foudres Pelissero's Vanotu bottling is aged entirely in new barriques The grapes grown in this limestone-rich site, which is located where Treiso, Barbaresco and Neive converge, have round, sweet tannins, Pelissero explains, and thus they can benefit from the firming influence of wood tannins. Fruit from his other Barbaresco vineyard features stronger grape tannins in the first place. Pelissero told me he harvested late in '99, well after the mid-September week of rain that panicked some of his neighbors into harvesting too early.