Cascina Baricchi Vino Rosso P-N 2010, Piemonte

The frequent reader of this wine-blog might have realized it a long time ago! I am shameless! Shameless in terms of almost everthing related to wine and particulary in terms of my Pinot Noir adverntures! I had bottles from almost everywhere around the globe. Rare ones, surprising ones, miserable ones, ones from afar and course plenty from rather “strange“ lands. But venturing into holy realms of one oft the Big B wine regions - apart of the best and most wonderful of all them big Bs of course - to have some Pinot? That, I have never dared to do … publicly! As most wine friends know Langhe, the direct encircling neighbourhood to Barolo and Barbaresco, is one of those legendary wine regions many sought to get a little drip of soma on their tongue. Me included … probably!?! Varietals, soils, expositions are similar to Barolo and Barbaresco. Only the allowed varietals differ (a bit). Anyway, enough prelude blather! So today it is time for Piedmotese Pinot Nero. Cascina Baricchi, the producer which I haven't mentioned yet, concentrates mostly on wines made from traditional Piedmontese grape varitetals such as Barbera, Dolcetto, Timorasso and of course Nebbiolo as well as quite a variety of fizz made from Nebbiolo, Syrah (!), Pinot Nero and Moscato. The winery was established in the late 1980s by Giovanni Simonetta and since 1996 his agile and adventerous son Natale is in charge of the production. All grapes of the approx. 6 ha small winery are cultivated on lime-loamy-marl soils close to Neviglie a few kilometers upthehills from Alba. The maceration of the "P-N" 2010 Langhe Rosso took 10 days in oak and was subsequently aged in used Barrique barrels from 12 months. Let's have a sip or two or better more ...

The visual impression made it pretty clear: This Pinot must be somehow different! Very blood dominated ruby'ish red hue with shy sparkle, overall transparent and unusually viscous for a wine with 12,5% alc. The nose showed plenty of Piedmont cherries – exactly those one from Ferrero, a lot of thyme, hints of black pepper, rustic dusty earth, dried roses and literary cans of blood. On the palate there were dried roses, tense dark cherries – here a bit more sherbert'y than liquory, again a lot of blood, sublime Domori 100%er chocolate and a trace of nutmeg. Besides all this I got a slightly stronger touch of fructose, rather dirty Shitake mushrooms and a very strong undertone of dusty stern earth. No real issue with the tannin. It was there! Plenty of it ... and quite raunchy. Same for the unusually erratically „moving“ and quite brisk acid. A very special acid for Pinot. Hard to describe. Try it yourself ;-). All this might not sound so enchanting!? Wrong! It was! It worked very nicely in combination with the rougher tannin and strong cool'ish fruitful and very earthy aromas. But it wasn't a charmer. That's quite obvious. Let's not put it all too intricated! It very much reminded me of a leaner and lighter Nebbiolo with aspiring elegance and respectable substance. Must be the soil, I guess! A lot of suspense and some challenging tensions are guarenteed! Surely very decent***** stuff! A unique kind of Pinot Nero! 

Next time, I hope it won't take me too long, I will send my tongue to fair wine fields of Greater Melbourne. I promise I won't take a tractor, but it will take a bit longer than 10 minutes ...