Barolo's 2022 Growing season

'An annus horribilis!’ Silvia Altare declared when I asked her last November how the 2022 vintage had played out. Altare took over the running of the La Morra-based estate from her father, Elio, a couple of years ago. Speculations about a change in style normally abound when there is a generational change but about Altare there were none. The transition seems to have gone smoothly. Altare just smirked when I suggested this to her.

‘In August 2022 we thought we would have the apocalypse, because there was no rain’, she told me, recalling the dramatic year. It wasn’t the extreme summer heat but the lack of rain and snow, preceded by an already very dry 2021, which had devastating effects. At the beginning of August, when a little rain fell, the vines had come dangerously close to breaking point but the game changer was the temperature drop during the night, which gave the vines a much-needed breather. This change in night-time temperature was a common factor across the region but the timing varied among the subregions.

‘What worked to our advantage were the hail nets, which provided shade’, Altare pointed out. Hail nets have now become a regular feature in the Barolo vineyards, turning their normal green colour into a dull black. But with the increased risk of freak hailstorms and global warming, producers no longer prioritise aesthetic considerations.

It finally snowed in the Langhe in the third week of December but to balance out the historic water deficit it would have to snow for three whole months. ‘If we do not get snow or rain we might have to plant bananas’, Altare sighed.

‘It was a year of luck and experience’, Altare continued. ‘With regard to the green harvest, we didn’t really know what to do: should we do it? shouldn’t we? There was real confusion among producers whether to drop fruit or not.’

In the end they did and they cut off more fruit than they would normally, especially in south-facing sites, to alleviate stress on the vines, but left a little more on west- and east-facing, fresher sites. Reportedly the average production in Barolo is down, sometimes by as much as 30%.

‘In 2022 we had very little disease. I won’t say it was easy but we did very few treatments in the vineyard, about half of what we normally do’, Altare pointed out. This saved costs, further brought down by the fact that the malolactic conversion started immediately after the alcoholic fermentation. Thanks to an unseasonably warm autumn, they did not have to heat up the cellar to encourage the malo to start. ‘We saved at least €5,000 on gas’, Altare mentioned. However, much of this cost-saving evaporates in the face of the formidable increase in the price of bottles, labels, and foils that were in part the consequence of reduced production triggered by sky-rocketing energy prices.

Horribiles are also the exponential price increases for rented vineyard plots. ‘I can’t rent anything for more than two years’, Altare explained. ‘One year you pay €10,000, the next €40,000.’ Rental agreements always end on 11 November, when the regional chamber of commerce publishes the new bulk-wine prices, which for Barolo increase year on year. ‘The farmer now asks for an extra percentage on top of what has been agreed. There are no handshake agreements anymore and our last long-term contract for Cannubi will end in 2024.’ Spiralling land speculation has become a permanent phenomenon in the Langhe.

A stone’s throw down the road in the hamlet of Roggeri at the Crissante Alessandria estate a visibly relaxed Alberto Alessandria called 2022 ‘stimulating’. Their approach to the record drought was to work the soils regularly, mowing the inter-row cover crops to avoid competition with the vines for what little humidity there was. ‘In August we tilled the soils so whatever rain came would be better absorbed rather than run off.’

Alessandria’s bet paid off when some rain fell at the end of August and twice in mid September. Without these crucial showers the grapes would not have ripened and alcohol and acidity levels would have been too low to produce quality wines. ‘The rainwater was not soaked up by the berries [so did not increase potential yield] but it did trigger veraison.’ During the growing cycle, Alessandria did no trimming, instead he let branches grow: ‘Every time you make cuts the vines get stressed, and we didn’t want to add to the stress the vines were already experiencing.’

Alessandria is optimistic about the overall quality of 2022. ‘The difference with 2017 [a record dry year] is that in 2017 the growing cycle started late and harvest was early. In 2022, budbreak was much earlier and the growing cycle much longer. The length of the cycle is very important for quality.’

Still in La Morra, in the hamlet of Santa Maria, Francesco Versio at Luigi Oddero describes 2022 as ‘extreme’, referring to the drought rather than the heat. ‘The problem started back in the summer of 2021. Since then, we had hardly any rain.’

Temperatures finally dropped at night in September but heat and drought severely delayed veraison in some vineyards. ‘We had to wait a long time because the skins remained green and hard. We eventually reached phenolic ripeness but the potential alcohol is high.’

Because the skins lacked phenolicsand substance, Versio kept the wines on the skins for a much shorter time than usual and fermented at low temperatures in order to keep the freshness and avoid jammy, cooked-fruit flavours. Versio doesn’t expect great structure in the 2022 Barolos not least due to the shortened skin-maceration time. ‘We decided to go for finesse and freshness rather than structure.’

Versio also observed that the growing cycle started early due to unseasonably warm weather but because of the lack of water the vines soon showed signs of water stress, which translated into irregular development and a small crop, some 30% less than the norm. ‘After flowering, some bunches never formed and the embryonic berries fell off the vines. There were also fewer shoots, which struggled to grow properly.’ Apparently, shoots and branches hardly ever reached the top wire of the training system, something never seen before in the Langhe.

While the berries remained small in their holdings in La Morra, they got a bigger yield in Serralunga because this part of Barolo got more rain.

At Luigi Oddero they were surprised how resilient Nebbiolo proved to be after almost 18 months of drought. ‘Nebbiolos can withstand hydric stress much better than Barberas’, which this year, he noted, have high alcohol, but are ‘empty’, lacking complexity and structure. Dolcetto was hit the hardest and Versio had to harvest the grapes as early as the end of August. 'We couldn’t wait any longer because the grapes would have dried on the vines.’ Nevertheless, Versio is cautiously optimistic: 'The [2022] Nebbiolos are pleasant. Perhaps not very structured, and perhaps without great tannins, but they are not dry, which is a real surprise.’

Claudio Fenocchio at the Giacomo Fenocchio estate in Monforte d’Alba was similarly worried in July, when a collective anxiety began to grip the region. Fenocchio feared that the little fruit he had would be overripe and completely dry out on the vine. To his relief this didn’t happen. ‘We noticed that the vine is resistant and in the first week of August the temperatures went down at night, which made all the difference. There was a little rain, not enough to penetrate the soil, but what fell on the leaves, the vine absorbed.’ He abstained from trimming and from mowing the inter-row cover crops: ‘the white soils would have reflected the sun’s rays to the vines creating even more heat’. Soils covered with the dried-out herbs and grasses proved to be 5 °C (9 °F) cooler than those that were not.

Fenocchio decided to harvest early to prevent excessive alcohol in the final wines. ‘Some [plots in] Villero and Bussia reach 15%, but, overall, they are not as excessive as we expected.’ Those who harvested later had alcohol levels well over 15%. Although the tannins are not perfect, Fenocchio, who regularly keeps his Barolos on the skins for up to 60 days, decided against a short maceration. ‘I don’t think we have green tannins, because we reached enough ripeness. But even with less-than-perfectly ripe tannins, long maceration times seem to even it out’, though he could not explain why prolonged macerations helped so much.

‘Difficult if very interesting’, is how Alberto Cordero of the Cordero di Montezemolo estate in La Morra described 2022. ‘It is very difficult to know the actual quality right now. It was a very dry year and we were afraid we would end up with very unbalanced grapes and low yields but this didn’t happen.’ He expected 30–35% less yield but it turned out to be only 5–6%.

‘2022 is the child of two critical conditions originating in 2021’, Cordero pointed out. The first, spring frost at the end of April, which hit parts of their vineyards. Initially, the damage seemed limited but the true extent is revealed only a year later. Frost can damage the phloem and xylem, the food- and water-conducting system within the trunk, but at first the damage is not visible. ‘The plant might be 90% rather than 100% productive, which is not a problem, but it is a problem the next year.’ The second critical condition was the knock-on effect of a very dry 2021, as described above by Silvia Altare.

However, Cordero puts on a brave face, not least because of the backdrop of a trio of vintages – 2019, 2020 and 2021 – all considered excellent to outstanding. ‘It is something that hasn’t happened for a long time’, Cordero commented. ‘Perhaps the last time was 1988, 1989 and 1990.’ Of the three, he favours 2021, ‘the most expressive for each variety [Dolcetto, Barbera, Nebbiolo]’, to use his words. ‘The wines were already clearly defined from the very beginning … 2019 and 2020 are a little below 2021. 2020 is more elegant, and 2019 a little richer.’

Luca Sandrone, agronomist at the Luciano Sandrone estate founded by his brother in Barolo, is one of the most thoughtful in his observations of the growing cycle. Talking about the 2022 vintage, he pointed out that the problem began on 8 December 2021. ‘We had 30 cm [12 in] of snow in three days and this gave us the illusion we had returned to the winters of the past with three months of snow.’ That didn’t happen and water tables were never properly replenished.

What followed was a mild winter that triggered an early budbreak but a cold spring slowed it down and pulled it back to what is considered a normal time frame. Sandrone observed, however, that the growth was irregular, as the vines struggled to find the water needed for growth, especially in Cannubi, a very hot cru with sandy soils. This was followed by hot and dry weather, which triggered an early flowering. In Sandrone’s vineyards the flowering was even and regular, which set the expectation of a good yield.

Although the vines seem to struggle, Sandrone also noticed they managed to adapt to the stress, helped by the fact that neither trimming nor bunch thinning was carried out. ‘I wanted to avoid having ripe fruit in August that soon would become overripe.’ By leaving more bunches on the vines, the plants slowed down. But even so, harvest was some 20 days earlier than the norm.

28 mm (1.1 in) of harvest-rescuing rain finally fell on 29 and 30 September. ‘On 3 October the grapes were completely different’, Sandrone recalled. The berries that at first were firmly attached to the stalks now seemed looser, indicating greater ripeness. ‘In three days the grapes had fully changed after the rain on 30 September, as if 15 days of ripening rather than three had passed.’ Sandrone explained that in times of severe hydric stress, the vine is capable of absorbing water through the leaves’ stomata, which is faster than pulling water up via the roots. Vines in warmer soils that held on to their leaves longer thanks to the rain were able to build up reserves for 2023.

Contrary to their expectations, alcohol levels haven’t gone through the roof. Sandrone reported that acidity levels are good even if the acidity differs from that of a normal year: ‘There was very little malic acid, and we had more tartaric acid instead.’ Sandrone speculated that owing to the lack of water, the vines couldn’t pull up enough potassium from the soil. Tartaric acid and potassium, which are normally and naturally present in must and wine, can combine to form insoluble bitartrate salts that precipitate out. ‘Therefore the acidity is much higher than we would have expected in normal years.’

In the cellar, they opted for a longer maceration than usual in order ‘to give the wines more depth and complexity’ but this was only possible for those who harvested later, according to Sandrone. He suggested that these longer macerations would not have been possible for anyone who harvested before the grapes changed on 3 October.

This article appeared previously on www.JancisRobinson.com and is republished here with kind permission.