New wine vs. mature wine vs. decanting

[RRainey]

I am ready to depart on my trip to Italy next month. I assume that most wine served in restaurants is young,

current vintages. But how do they allow enough time for the wine to breathe? I tried a vietti borolo 98 the other day which had been decanted for over an hour. It was almost totally closed. It probably needed 8 hours or so to open up. This is obviously not practical for a restaurant. I know many older wines would need less time and I plan to choose those when practical,I suppose the other choice is to go with a Dolcetto or Barbara. ? RR

Edited August 19, 2003 by Craig Camp (log)

[Craig Camp]

Can we assume from the wines you are talking about that you will be visiting only Piemonte??

Once we find out where you are going we can make some recommendations for some wines you will be able to easily find.

[RRainey]

Hello, Sorry Piedmont is the main wine area we are going to,Also going to Val D' aosta where there are a few wines, apparently even some nebbiolo based, but much lighter in style and meant to drink young. Also briefly stopping in Bologna,then the Appinines(Fanano) and a few days at lake Orta also in Piedmont. RR

[Craig Camp]

You will find this thread useful in Valle d'Aosta click here

Wine service in Piemontese restaurants can be quite good and often is more sophisticated than you would expect from the look of the place. Often decanters and huge balloon glasses appear when you order an expensive wine and the owner will decant the wine with flair. However, unless you don't expect the main courses for several hours this does not do much good for young Barolo. Actually in Piemonte in can take a long time to get to your main course because of the waves of antipasti to be consumed first! If you know you want Barolo order it right away and have them decant it for you - they will understand. Another alternative if you want to drink Barolo is to order the wines of ultra-modern producers that tend to drink well younger. The 1997 vintage produced rich soft wines so you may want to order wines of that vintage. Many restaurants will also have older wines available and the 1995's are starting to be quite drinkable.

The other options are Barbera and Dolcetto from top producers. These wines can be quite serious indeed and price is a dead give away as to who is trying to be serious. Other choices are the Lange DOC wines from Barolo and Barbaresco producers who are blending nebbiolo with barbera as these wines are also very modern in style and thus more early maturing.

Keep an eye out for values on old Barolo and Barbaresco on wines lists as you can often run into an incredible deal at prices you could not even dream of outside of Italy.

[RRainey]

I have read about borolo and understand the new vs. Old styles.But there seem to be so many producers

that it would take years to figure out the whole scheme. I know one Classic old style is Conterno(Isn't there two Conternos ). I enjoyed Aldo's barbera awile ago. I assume restaurants like Belvedere will have some older wines and I definetly will take advantage. I have been reading the slow food book on Borolo and Barbaresco which has been helpful and also plan visits to Ca Rome and Macarini.

According to what I have read the 88's are drinking better than the 90's now,at least it said hold the 90's and drink or hold the 88's. So on at least a few occasions I plan to spring for a older wine , my 10th anniversary

being one. The choices will be narrower I presume and anything they decided to buy in a quantity to hold for more than 10 years must be good in their opinion. I feel it would be worth an additional 50% for a wine of this age is that about right? RR

Edited August 21, 2003 by RRainey (log)