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Bartolo Mascarello
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About Bartolo Mascarello
A lot has changed in the legendary wine-making region of Piemonte. Over the past two decades a new wave of producers has emerged in the region, revealing different personalities of the majestic nebbiolo grape. And to their credit, the modernists have made Barolo more approachable. However, Barolo is a wine of patience and, like the great wine-making regions of Europe, it possesses an ancient, glorious past that cannot be forgotten. There is a handful of gladiators who continue to protect this past way of life and resist all temptations to bow to commercial pressures. The use of long maceration (capello sommerso) and aging in large old barrels (botti) of local oak and chestnut are perfected, not disregarded. These true artisans are Piemonte’s greatest producers: Giacomo Conterno, Bruno Giacosa, and, most notably, Bartolo Mascarello. This great man who passed away in March, 2005 still has a cult following.
Bartolo Mascarello, the great elder statesman of Barolo, spoke with the same candidness and fervor as the younger Angelo Gaja. However, for Bartolo the passion was for the preservation of Barolo’s historic past, which emphasizes the flavors of the local land rather than wood grown in Limousin, France or roto-fermentors designed Down Under. Until a few years before his death, this gentle man refused even to have a telephone in his office.
Bartolo's daughter, Maria Teresa, makes her wine the same way her father did 50 years ago, through techniques that go back centuries and which were inherited when he was an apprentice under his father, Giulio, one of the true icons of Barolo. Despite his owning vines on the prestigious Cannubi hilltop, Mascarello's wine is not a cru selection; it is a blend from Canubbi, San Lorenzo, Rue, and Rocche. The approach is simple: low yields and ripe fruit from Barolo’s best vines, blended for consistent quality and style. Like his father, he instilled these same values and techniques in the next generation, who now carries on the artisan’s craft and represents the future of Barolo’s Old School.
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Why 84-Points is Better than 100
In early March 2006, I got an email from my friend, the Italian wine writer, staunch naturalist, and infamous contrarian Franco Ziliani. "Can you believe this?" he wrote. "They gave Mascarello's 2001 Barolo 84 points." He attached a review from the nation's leading wine magazine. "Very funky," the review said. "Smells like a warm room with two wet dogs in it."
"Sure I can believe it," I wrote back. "What? Are you surprised?"
Mascarello's 2001 is, in fact, a gorgeous wine, with not a hint of damp puppy to it. Franco theorized that by giving the same score to the Barolo as they had to a $7 bottle of '02 Yellow Tail Chardonnay, the publication was making a personal attack on the Mascarello family, who never gave any credence to the press and often refused to even send samples; on top of that, the magazine had never understood Italian wines. Franco was furious, and rightly so-but I wasn't. I was thrilled. I called my friend Robert, the US importer of Mascarello. Robert is an unorthodox fellow; he prays that his favorite wines garner low scores, just so he doesn't have to interact with journalists and label chasers.
"Bobby," I said. "Congratulations on your 84 points!"
"Thank god for small miracles," Robert said.
Next, I went to my partner Perry's office. "Did you hear about the Mascarello score?" I asked.
"I was just about to double our order," he said.
Finally, I called Maria-Teresa Mascarello, the daughter of the late master Bartolo Mascarello and the estate's head winemaker. "Maria-Teresa, you made an amazing wine and got a crappy score," I said. "Congratulazioni."
"I could not be more relieved," she said. "My father would be so happy to know that our wines won't be wasted on the wrong people. Getting these wines into the hands of the right people is the only way to ensure that we'll be here another 100 years. Those scores mean less than nothing to us, you know?"
Did I ever. When it comes to a truly great wine, sometimes a bad public perception of the drink is the best thing that can happen to someone like me. I learned that the hard way, back in 2000.
It was a cool fall morning, and I had gotten to work early. I was expecting my first shipment of Bartolo Mascarello 1996 Barolo and I was too excited to sit around at home. As soon as I arrived at work, my phone rang.
"Where were you last night?" the vice president of a major wine merchant asked. He and some of the country's most influential buyers had met for a tasting of 1996 Barolos.
I told him I had another event, but the truth was that I hadn't needed to try Barolos from the vintage again-I already knew which ones I loved.
"Well, I'll tell you one thing," the VP said. "The Mascarello was terrible."
"Terrible?" I asked.
"Dreadful," he said. "Like a rosé, and with no fruit. Who makes these wines now anyway?"
I told him that Bartolo Mascarello himself had become wheelchair-bound in recent years. For a time, a man named Alessandro Fantino worked in the cellar. Eventually, however, Maria-Teresa was ready to take over as chief winemaker. Bartolo remained the inspiration and motivation behind the estate, but his daughter did the physical work.
"Yeah, I thought so," the VP said. I nodded silently and watched the deliveryman bring the cases into the store. As Perry took the clipboard to sign for the order, I wondered if I had enough time to sprint from my desk and tackle him to the floor before he touched pen to paper. Instead, I sat still. "I heard that these were once great wines," the VP continued. "But I figured that someone new had started to make them because they've really fallen from grace."
"Well, nice to hear from you," I said weakly, and put down the phone. For a moment, I was confused. When I had tasted the wines a few months earlier, I had known that they were remarkable. Nebbiolo had thrived that year, and many Barolos-not just Mascarello's-reminded me of how the 1989 vintage had tasted when I first tried it in 1994. The 1989 vintage is now widely recognized as the best year from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, and the '96 displayed that same restraint, that same complexity and depth. That's why I'd ordered 50 cases.
Suddenly I forgot my befuddlement and panicked. My fledgling business couldn't handle this sort of loss. If I was wrong and this guy and his friends were right, I might have to close the shop; I'd be ruined. I began to take long, deep breaths.
"Uh oh," Perry said, turning around. "What is it?"
I told him about the call; the color drained from his face. Before we could steady ourselves, two my friends, a wine writer and a buyer, walked into the store.
"Aha!" the buyer said. "I see you got in a bunch of '96 Mascarello."
I inhaled and exhaled, inhaled and exhaled.
"I hear they suck," the writer said. "Open a bottle for us and let's see."
We went to the back room and uncorked the bottle. I watched their faces as they took their first sips. Then I took mine.
"Too lean," said the buyer.
"Too austere," said the writer.
"Not velvety enough," said the buyer.
"Not round enough," said the writer.
"Ungenerous," said the buyer.
"Lacking in the midpalate," said the writer.
"Nothing there," said the buyer.
"You gonna try to return the wines?" the buyer asked.
"We'll see," I said.
"So," Perry said when they left, "what do you think?"
"It's one of the best glasses of wine I've ever had," I said. It was just as I'd remembered-a rare gem. Like any great wine, it wasn't fully developed, but I could taste its potential, and it was extraordinary. I realized what had happened: The people who first tasted the vintage were modernists; they craved fruit, jamminess, deep color, readiness. And they had no context; they'd only heard about the excellence of a Mascarello Barolo, but they'd never actually tasted one in its youth. They passed their opinion onto their friends, and their friends came in ready to hate the wine. I ordered another 50 cases.
"I'll make sure all of my clients lay a case down," Perry said. "In a few years, we're going to make so many people happy."
And we did. As I expected, the '96 never received much press. What had happened to me on a small scale had happened to the entire vintage. Civilian opinion of the wine was clouded by the preconceptions they'd been handed. The year passed without much ado, and in 2001, when the '97s came out, people went nuts.
But after several years, everyone had to recognize that the true splendor lay in the '96s. These wines are in it for the long haul, wines that have only just begun to show what they're capable of. Today, it's common knowledge that '96 is a fantastic vintage. I was at a dinner recently, drinking the Mascarello Barolo, when I heard a familiar voice. I turned around to see my friend, the buyer, glass in hand.
"I always knew this Mascarello was killer," he said. "People didn't get it back then, but man, these '96s are smoking!"
The journalists who rate these wines miss the essence of Italian wines-you can't judge them with scoring systems, mechanically drinking dozens at once and expecting them to be ready because you want them to be ready. Rather, you have to comprehend how a wine will bloom, how it will unfold. It takes more than a numerical breakdown of midpalate and fruit to predict that.
Remember the Mascarello '89 I was comparing to the '96? It's widely considered one of the best Barolos ever made. And back when it came out in 1994, the same major magazine sampled it. Like biting into a handful of walnut scraps, they said, with wet earth and menthol overtones to the modest plum and prune flavors struggling to be heard over the noise. Then it gave the wine a 76. |
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