Vietti Barolo Riserva Villero 2010

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

Each release being celebrated with a unique artist label just like the wines of Château Mouton-Rothschild. The 2010 Villero features another striking artwork as the label, this time “Opera Originale” by Giuseppe Stampone.

This is the very pinnacle of Vietti’s incredible brace of wines!

Grapes variety: 100% Nebbiolo, Michet Subvariety

Vineyard Located within the village of Castiglione Falletto: the Villero vineyard faces South/South-west and covers an area of a little less than one hectare. The vines are 42 years of age on average and are planted at a density of 4,000 per hectare. The 2010 vintage was harvested on October 6th, and yielded around 35 hectoliters of wine per hectare.

Soil: Moderately clay and compact, with evident white and blue marlstone.

Winemaking: After alcoholic fermentation in steel tanks at a temperature of between 28 and 32 degrees Celsius, the wine macerated on the skins for a total of 12 days. It was then transferred immediately into small barrels for malolactic fermentation and into bigger oak casks for further aging. It was bottled without filtration on July 25th, 2013. Total production for the 2010 vintage was 3,316 standard bottles, 100 magnums, 5 double magnums.

About Vietti

Back in 2005, I spent some time at Vietti. Their winery sits in the castle atop Castiglione Falletto. It’s walls broken by slit windows for archers to defend the grounds. The escape tunnel leading from the castle to the plains below had been filled in only a few years prior to my visit. Somehow they’ve managed to modernise aspects of the winery carving into the rock without collapsing the ancient buildings surrounding it.

One of my earlier experience of Vietti was at the Australian Wine Research Institutes Advanced Wine Assessment Course. A blind bracket of 9 Nebbiolo’s was presented, Vietti’s Perbacco from 1998 and Brunate from 1996. The Brunate was superb. My notes from the tasting read “Very complex, great harmony, texture, rich, long, very together, perfumed, incredible layers andvibrancy.” The Perbacco excellent, particularly at 1/8th the price. “Great purity, balance, and poise. Supple with an excellent core of fruit and lovely floral notes.”

In many ways, little has changed. Perbacco, typically declassified Barolo, is the wine to crack while you’re waiting for your Barolo to mature!

Vietti intrigues me. Some of the best Barolo I have devoured have come from their winery. Watching the wines evolve over time, both the same vintage and across vintages has been fascinating. Modern technology at times pierced the tradition. Last year a vertical tasting going back to 1982 was fascinating. It again highlighted my growing consensus that the drinking window for good Barolo, from great years, starts at around 10 years and is right in the zone between 15 and 20 years. The Villero Riserva is in the rare class of Barolo that will push this window out to 30 years+.

Whilst Vietti have always produced more structured wines, they have never shifted to the overt new oak regimes of the likes of Clerico. The wines have always shown harmony and balance.

2010 vintage – Le Langhe, Piedmont

Winter was long and cold with copious snow, guaranteeing excellent soil water reserves. Spring was wet and mild temperatures throughout the growing season, presented some disease concerns in June, and the expectation of a late harvest. Warm sunny weather arrived for the last 10 days of August and throughout September with exceptionally large diurnal temperature shifts. 2010 is a vintage all about site selection and Nebbiolo – classic autumn conditions endowed 2010 Nebbiolo with great acid balance, phenolic and sugar ripeness and sublime aromatics.

The 2010’s I’ve had across Barolo and Barbaresco from quality producers have been stunning. Richer than the years either side, often brooding and youthful for their age. Tannins are ripe and layered.

In 2018 Vietti are releasing just the 12th vintage of their Barolo Riserva Villero from the 2009 vintage, with the label another striking work of art, this time this time “Opera Originale” by Giuseppe Stampone.

Vietti have just under one hectare in Villero with an average vine age of 41 years. Produced only in exceptional years, the wine is aged extensively in large Slavonian oak botti and then in bottle

Villero is a large Cru within the Commune of Castiglione Falletto, which is noted for the structure and excellence of its Nebbiolo wines (22.07 Ha with 93% planted to Nebbiolo) divided amongst 10 producers and all uniformly exposed south/south-west at around 250 to 350 metres above sea level on white and blue marl soils typical to the Commune.

Vietti have a long held tradition of specially-designed original art works as labels. Initially in 1974 Luca’s parents Alfredo Currado and Luciana Vietti engaged specific artists for several of their wines, however since the presentation of the 1982 Barolo Villero in 1988, this practice has been reserved exclusively for the Barolo Riserva Villero. The print run is the same as the number of bottles produced, and the first hundred labels are signed by the artist. Each work is only used once, just for the wine of that vintage.