2015 Barbaresco Currà 

Sottimano's 2017s are a mixed bag. It's hard to see how they could have turned out differently in a year which saw devastating hail, then frost and unrelenting hot/dry weather all the way through harvest. Basarin, Fausoni and Currà were almost entirely wiped out. As a result, those wines weren't bottled at all. Because of the extremely hot June, Sottimano decided to leave a bit more crop on the vine in order to avoid having overly concentrated wines. The 2017s spent 25 days on the skins and 18 months in oak with no racking. The 2016s are every bit as thrilling as they were last year, when I tasted them just after bottling. Benign conditions yielded a clean crop of exceptional quality. The 2016s saw a total of 40 days on the skins, followed by 18 months in barrel, with no racking.

My visit to Sottimano was a real highlight of the time I spent in Barbaresco this past summer. I have been buying these wines for my own cellar since the mid 1990s. The transformation here since then has been nothing short of remarkable. Rino and Andrea Sottimano gave their 2016s 30 days on the skins and then aged the wines in a cold cellar with the goal of drawing out the malolactic fermentations as long as possible, the approach they have taken for a number of years. The long harvest of 2016 yielded exquisitely perfumed, silky wines that are utterly captivating. Tasted next to the 2016, the 2015s have slightly coarser tannins and less overall polish, although that is in relative terms given the absolute quality of the wines across the board.

Andrea Sottimano and his family continue to make wines of pedigree and class. Each and every year the wines are a little more refined, a little more nuanced, and always of great interest. The 2015s are the product of a warm vintage in which the fruit was brought in between late September and early October. For purposes of comparison, harvest was a few weeks later in both 2014 and 2016. Sottimano gave their 2015s a full 40 days on the skins, about ten days longer than the 2014s. As has been the case for some time, the wines are aged in French oak barrels, with very little new oak, and with an emphasis on keeping temperatures cool in order to encourage long malolactic fermentations and graceful aging over the two years the wines spend in barrel. In tasting, I found the 2015s to be strong across the board, although vineyard signatures are not as marked as they are in cooler vintages. It will be interesting to see if the wines shut down post bottling at some point. The 2014 Barbarescos are every bit as brilliant as they were last year.