Ep. 185 Sarah Heller MW (Vinitaly International Academy Faculty) on Barolo | Education meets Business

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast. My name is Montewood. My guest today is Sarah Heller. Sarah is a master of wine who sits on the faculty of Vine Italy International also holds the title of via Middle International wine Ambassador. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. So today, you and I, or maybe you, hopefully, are gonna talk to us about Barolla, which is a docG wine from Vermont it in northwest, Italy. Oh, well, you've taken all of my facts from me, but yes. Why don't it be very easy, yes. I like a master wine that's concise. Absolutely. Yes. So we're further whereabouts? Where is it? Where is it? So it's in the northwestern most, section of Italy other than the Valedaosta that we won't get into get into the skiing area. Yeah. The skiing area. Absolutely. And the country of white truffles. So arguably the only great wine region in the world that has a food culture that kind of lives up to the the quality of corn. Tusk and French. Wow. Terry. You know, I can get your protection, without friends Tuscany. Oh, it's there. It's it's hard to be unbiased about Pemonte. You're a big fan then? Yeah. It's the first place I got interested in wine. I was there working at a at a restaurant as a cook, in Turin, actually. When I I took time off from university and the salary. You're doing a title on this. Yeah. Okay. I know that's not very geeky of me, is it? But, you know, you've got a god and find find what else is interesting. So you're working as a chef? I well, I was working as an apprentice chef, perhaps. Quite a casual place. The name of it, was Boya Faust, which is, yeah, Kimmonte's dialect for, like, what they I mean, I Am I allowed to swear on your podcast? Yeah. You can. Yes. Okay. What the fuck? So it's, yeah, it's where I first fell in love with wine, was interested in food. So How old were you then? Twenty. It's every young. At the time. Yeah. Which that was an early love affair. Indeed. Yeah. So then you investigated I never quite gotten over it. Investigated the wines. Yeah. And obviously, what are the big guns in Piamante? What are we gonna talk about today? Well, so Barolo and Babaresco. Today, we're gonna focus on Barolo. I was actually just in, both places, about twenty four hours ago, but today we'll focus on Vodola just because there's, more recent additions to the complexity there with, two thousand ten, MGA additions. So MGA is? Antione, geographical mentions, additional geographical mentions, so nothing particularly sexy. But So what does that mean for the label? Yeah. It effectively identifies specific vineyard names that are allowed appear on the on the label because there was a lot of confusion. Right? There are crews that are known for being very high quality. So there's a sort of single vineyard areas Indeed. Rather than actual single vineyards, although they can be. Yeah. Yeah. It really depends on the size. Some are absolutely immense, so like Bousia. So you really need to have more detail. Which village is Bousia? How many and how many villages are in the Barolo DOCGs zone? So eleven villages, but five that really have a high concentration of these MGAs and are really for producing the top wines. So the five are? La Mora Barolo, obviously, castigliano Falleto, Ceralounga, Alba, and Muno, and they all sort of have their individual traits. It's largely determined, or a tradition name was largely thought to be determined by the nature of the soils. So just one parameter, basically, soil. That's the one, traditionally. Exactly. Much more investigation of some specific exposures and just, a greater understanding that the soil is is not uniform in the way that people once thought perhaps that it was. There are a lot of different factors obviously starting to change with the climate being in transition as it were. I don't know if it So what are, I mean, what are the origins of the of these stores just in a nutshell? Yeah. So geologically, the whole area is very heavy clay for the most part, and it really depends on the amount of elkarius material sand and sandstone. To the heaviest soils, the sort of dense sandstone ones are more around cera longer alba, unfortunately castillones sort of the blend. So what does that make? What does that what does that do to the the burritos from that particular? They they hide alcohol or an alcohol? What do you mean? It's not as much about the alcohol as the tannic structure. It's just this robustness, this longevity, and it does come across also in the you get just a sort of darkness, less obvious aromatic lift, whereas from the, so these are the soils that you can divide them into all different sort of categories. But in terms of the age, that's what was used to be called the halveetian, and now the, cerevailean. That's the Jude or Tully book? Yes. Exactly. Which was when? God, it's all in the Messinian and, about twelve million years ago. Okay. Versus the Toretonian, which is slightly younger. And they're more like seven, eight million years ago. And the tortonian soils, characteristics are? More sand. Although there's a huge debate about which ones have more sand, but they're generally lighter in quality and have sounds counterintuitive, but the the glaze. There are these blue clays, and they tend to produce this sort of lighter, more aromatic, pretty style. Earlier, earlier drinking styles, particularly La Mora is known for producing these perfumed almost pinot like styles. And does go for the color as well, these changes and sort of have exerted something on the color as well? Yeah. I mean, obviously, there's a huge amount of winemaking that goes into the color of the wines, especially we'll get into maybe modernist and traditionalist later. But, when people were really focused on extracting acting as much color as they could, largely to appeal to sort of American critical tastes. You go out completely out of bounds. You get wines from the mora that are really concentrated and dark and don't like look look like they're made of nebula at all. So what you're saying is wine making is there's kind of less of it and it's more the wines are more terroir driven. So if we wanted to, not generalize, but say give me some examples of a classic wine, not necessarily the producer but a classic part of a particular communist. So if you contrast x with y. You'll see two they're both borollos, but they're two very different ones. What would you use as a good example if you were teaching? Yeah. I mean, probably you would have to get a producers because it's not it's not really about the terroir that that makes these traditional versus not, but, I mean, classically, Barto Mascarello. It's a real staunch traditionalist. So where's he based? Well, they have land in Kanrugi where are they? They're in Baroll, and more of a modern style might be roberto wears two, and he is in La Mora. And yeah, there's just the traditionalist modernist debate I think has has sort of been outgrown by the region. It's it's really probably overplayed among consumers, and so I don't wanna perpetuate it too much, but there are still some differences. Right. Maybe twenty years ago, those differences are much darker, weren't they? Absolutely. Yeah. We're a clear division between the modernist Yeah. And the traditionalist. Yeah. Yeah. And unfortunately, by a lot of people, it's just been boiled down to the modern styles used by Rick. And the traditionalists do not. And I think it was so many more things. It was about finding more concentration in the vineyards. Some of which was positive, right? There was a lot of green harvesting that happened that that Maybe too much sometimes. Yes. Absolutely. But I think there was there tends to be a belief now that traditional is the best and it's not necessarily true. I think they needed to go through this phase where some people might say. Yeah. Absolutely. They they needed a bit of a bit of an incentive to to change. Because if you try some of these older wines that were made with these very, very long macerations with grape, with vines that were maybe higher yielding than they should have been, you just get these very hard bitter tannins that have never really gone away. And, and now the, obviously, at the height of the modernist fetish, I will say. I've tried some of those wines from the early two thousand's late nineties from the producers who were really, you know, using things like roto fermenters, really trying to get as much out of the skin as possible. And this wine's a apart now too for their own reasons. Right? The alcohol was to to robust that there wasn't actually enough connection of the color to the to the tenants. And so the the phenolic chains are just sort of falling apart. So obviously neither extreme is positive, but the vast majority of producers now have come towards the middle. Phenolic change sounds like a a wrong band. Yeah. That's a great one. Yeah. A heavy metal. So what about climate change? Climate change. So definitely there is an awareness in the region that it's going to be challenging for them. It's gonna they're kind of right at the edge because it's it's characteristically been thought of as a cool climate region, but with lots of sunshine. And all of the all of the allocation of the the, the MGA is these crews. The decisions about which are the positive ones was based on where the snow melted first. Or, so typically the the most prestigious ones are the ones that were warmer. So things like Kanubi, vinerianda, often amphitheaters. Where lots of sun was collected. Those are not I don't wanna say those sites specifically, but warmer sites are not necessarily going to be the ones that produce the greatest wines fifty years from now. But Viticulture is changing. There isn't isn't it? Absolutely. In terms of, you know, the classic look was the kind of, no grass at all in the vineyard. My last visit there was talking to some organic rose. One of the reasons organics, if you're going more popular leaving grass between the rows is because you, if you have these rain events, you get erosion. Also, you can get into the vineyard with your tractor. There's no grass there. It's very slippery and people do die. They fall off when they die. Yeah. Absolutely. So, I was there in twenty fourteen when when they had exactly the issue that there was just so much rain coming down. And people couldn't even get into spray. It was dangerous to get out there with a little tractors. And it just because of these heavy clays in the soil, it just becomes almost impossible to move around literally. So, yes, there are a lot more people creating a a swathe of which a sword. A sword. Swored. Yeah. You never swathe. A swath of swords. Pardon me. Okay. Cool. Bring me my sword. My sword. Yeah. Just sound awesome. Would you like some grass or would you like an actual sword? Swored. Yeah. A swad of swords? It's quite right. Let's have like a band. Another we're just gonna sprout all these ideas for balance over the course of this conversation, indeed. So lots of different types of grass being grown depending on what the needs of the vineyard are. Right? So some that create these very thick drawers that then are able to be flattened out and create kind of mulch. Machu Matura is called in, Italian. Right. Others that, vetches and various leguminous plants that are contributing more nitrogen, others that are taking it out. So I think there's a much greater sensitivity to what the vineyard needs and how the, grasses can contribute to that, obviously also attracting insects. And doing it and also having a grass competition, which isn't actually compete over competing with the vines as well. Indeed. Yeah. Twenty seventeen, that was a really big challenge, actually, where where some times they they, even the most dedicated producer. So for instance, Gaia have been really working on only flattening their grass, never actually cutting it because that Drolling it. Yeah. Yeah. Because that takes, takes additional water from the soil. They they believe actually had to to cut it and sort of clean, just because there was so little water, especially in the early part of the season. So, yeah, real real challenges. I mean, when when you get to the the most extreme of conditions, I think people have to sort of set aside their their priorities, which, their priority towards creating this sustainable pattern ironically enough, in the domestic stream condition. So my last question about the actual nebbiolo itself from, barolo. Mhmm. So what what does nebbiolo normally taste of, and what is it, what makes it different in barolo? Right. Labor's arachability or tonic structure or anything like that. Yeah. Sanaviola is an interesting one. It is an aromatic, or it's not a it's not an aromatic red grape in the way that other things like. No. Or Yeah. Perfection. Precise it. It's more like pinot noir. It's not like some of the genuine aromatic red grapes like ruke or what am I trying to say? La creamora. Exactly. Can I go that? They both got this kind of jelly fruit. Yeah. Exactly. Not that kind of candied character. It's the the famous characters are obviously this rose petal and tar. Although a lot of modern leaning producers kind of resent this tar characterization, they think of it as something unclean. My argument would be that all the best ones in the world have something a little bit filthy to touch. I didn't think I heard you use that on the podcast. Oh, dear button myself up. Yeah, No. I I I think it's a it's a vital vital trait of of all great ones that they they do something a little bit bent. But and and I think you find this to a greater degree in Barolo and barbaresco than in other areas that grow, nebbiolo. So it's also find it in Valelos, Latilina, in in the north of Piamonte, and in Roeron, just across the river, across the townaro. But it's certainly really in Barolo, Bartaresco, where you get these these just the the the intensity of the layering, the and also the the structure. I mean, I think, Give me Catinara and, Bartelina are probably coming close in terms of ageability, but I haven't had really, really old wines from those regions that have the same robustness against time that, that Olin does, especially. Cool. Totally say thanks to my guest today, Sarah Haller, master of wine via Italian ambassador. Thanks for talking today about, region in Piamonte. We'll get you back on the show at some stage to talk about other Italian wine regions. Thank you. Follow Italian wine podcast on Facebook and Instagram.