2005 Barolo Cerequio

Roberto Voerzio's 2005 Barolos have become darker and deeper with time in bottle. Readers should plan on opening the wines a few hours in advance, as they benefit considerably from aeration. Voerzio describes 2005 as a cool, rainy year with overcast conditions and some hail during the summer. At the time, the wines were aged exclusively in barrique. Tasted today, the coolish weather and resulting uneven ripeness, along with the French oak tannins, a reminder that 2005 yielded tightly wound, sinewy Barolos with serious beams of tannin. Voerzio did not bottle his Rocche dell'Annunziata, Sarmassa and Riserva Vecchie Viti dei Capalot e delle Brunate because they weren't up to his exacting standards. Unfortunately, I did not taste the Brunate.

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 Four – Current Releases: The 2005 and 2006 Barolos

Vintage 2005 is mixed for Roberto Voerzio. There are no Barolos from Sarmassa, Capalot or Rocche dell'Annunziata as the wines did not meet Voerzio's exacting standards of quality. Small defects that are common in cool vintages could have been addressed with the use of commercial yeasts and other additives, but Voerzio eschews anything that gets in the way of his stripped-down, non-interventionalist approach in the cellar. Voerzio also had damage from hail in the upper reaches of La Serra, and his wine from that vineyard was enough to fill one measly 12-hectoliter tank. As partial compensation, there will be a Riserva from Fossati/Case Nere which will be released somewhere around 2015. In today's business-first world it is a sign of a serious commitment to quality when a producer consciously chooses not to bottle wines over putting a less than perfect product on the market. The Barolos that did make it into bottle are among the best 2005s, but like all wines in this vintage, they are relatively slender and lithe vis-à-vis the 2006s and 2007s.

Perhaps displaying how tastes in Barolo are a function of the generation of the drinker, Roberto Voerzio says 2006 is the classic vintage, while his son Davide prefers 2007. "The 2007s are big, rich and round, while the 2006s are a more tannic vintage for our Barolos," Davide told me. "For me, 2006 and 2005 are both one step down." Davide also considers 2004 to be great, not to mention approachable in its youth. In my tasting this year, I once again wondered if this family is being penalized by its tireless work in the vines and tiny yields (typically between 0.5 and 0.7 kilo per vine), a strategy that in an age of global warming is producing very ripe fruit extremely early-or should I say extremely ripe fruit very early? I could say the same thing about a couple of Burgundy growers. (By the time of my visit this year on September 17, Voerzio had already picked Barolo in Rocche and Sarmassa, even though most of his neighbors were not planning to start for at least another week.) These are hugely rich and concentrated wines but occasionally show a roasted character that, for this taster at least, limits their appeal. I was only able to taste one 2006, as Voerzio did not want to present wines that had been bottled just a month before my visit, but I was able to see an impressive set of 2007s from barrel. My favorites in the early going were the Rocche, La Serra and Brunate, all of which promise to earn scores in the 93 to 96 range. The yields in 2007 were typically a minuscule 15 hectoliters per hectare, according to Roberto Voerzio, who compared these wines to the 2004s and 2000s. Incidentally, Voerzio started using some 15-, 20- and 25-hectoliter casks in 2008 as he believes that some of his wines can dry out and lose their fruit in new barriques (previously he aged his Barolos entirely in barriques, one-third new).

There is mixed news this year from Roberto Voerzio. The not so good news is that Voerzio decided to bottle just four of his eight 2005 Barolo selections. The better news is that, as is often the case, his Barolos are among the finest of the vintage. Unfortunately the wines will be especially hard to come by this year. There are no Barolos from Sarmassa, Capalot or Rocche dell'Annunziata as the wines did not meet Voerzio's exacting standards of quality. Small defects that are common in cool vintages could have been addressed with the use of commercial yeasts and other additives, but Voerzio eschews anything that gets in the way of his stripped-down, non-interventionalist approach in the cellar. Voerzio also had hail damage from hail in the upper reaches of La Serra, and his wine from that vineyard was enough to fill one measly 12-hectoliter tank. As partial compensation, there will be a Riserva from Fossati/Case Nere which will be released somewhere around 2015. In today's business-first world it is a sign of a serious commitment to quality when a producer consciously chooses to not bottle wines over putting a less than perfect product on the market. Voerzio's wines are never inexpensive, but over the last few years they have rarely failed to deliver the goods.