Five days in Barolo: A visit to Cappellano
Serralunga d'Alba
Tasted Thursday, July 3, 2014 by David Paris with 3,458 views
Introduction
*************************************************************************************************************************
This is part of five days that my wife Natasha and I stayed in Monforte, primarily for the purpose of visiting some of my favorite Barolo producers. I was very pleased as our trip was coming together as we were able to arrange visits with all of my top choices. For further exploration, see also my write ups of visits at: Giacomo Conterno, Giuseppe Mascarello, Giuseppe Rinaldi, Vietti, Comm. G.B. Burlotto, Bartolo Mascarello, and Azelia. Yes, it was an amazing five days...
*************************************************************************************************************************
Just a few weeks before our trip to Italy I cooked a five-course Piedmont inspired dinner for our friend’s Ken and Erica, and paired it with 5 different Barolos from Cappellano. This played as a wonderful predecessor for our trip, and I was so pleased that we were able to make this visit to investigate closer some of the most interesting wines in Barolo. Of course, it is Cappellano who revived the Chinato recipe decades ago. It is also Cappellano who is making the only ungrafted Nebbiolo in their Pie Franco Barolo. After a landslide in the Gabutti vineyard, Teobaldo Cappellano decided to plant own rooted Michet clone of Nebbiolo and it produces one of the most unique, distinctive Barolos available. We reached out to Cappellano before our trip and let them know about our dinner and they very eagerly invited us for a visit at the winery.
When we arrived we were greeted by Laura, who handed us off to Paolo who spoke excellent English. We later learned he actually spent some time in and around Portland, Oregon in the 1980s, working at a hazelnut and apple farm in the Willamette Valley. He said the whole farm is now converted to Pinot Noir! He didn't know who farms it or where exactly it was. Would be fun to visit.
This building has been used for the production of Cappellano for about 40 years... it was acquired by Teobaldo after his return from Eritrea in 1970.
Paulo has been working and collaborating with Augusto Cappellano for a few years now. Prior to this he was working with a few small, natural producers in Chianti Classico and Montalcino. After some introductions, Paolo said he'd give us a tour of the production facility and then asked if it would "be alright if we did some Barolo barrel samples..." Why yes, that'd be just about splendid!
We first walked into the barrel room, where the 2013, 2012, and 2011 reside. Everything's done in large old barrels. As seen at other producers (Roberto Conterno), they too are moving away from the Garbellotto barrels from the Veneto to ordering new barrels from Stockinger in Austria. 
Then onto the fermentation and blending room. Most of the fermentations here are done in these various sized concrete tanks:
Final blending and resting is done in these large oak barrels. The entirety of Pie Franco and Pie Rupiestris can fit in one of these barrels. 
At this point, Paulo asked us if we wanted to dive into the 2013 Barolo, so we did. First, the 2013 Pie Rupiestris: 
Flight 1 (2 Notes)
Flight 2 (1 Note)
Then onto the blending tank for 2010 Rupestris:
Flight 3 (1 Note)
At this point we returned to the entry room shown at the beginning of this write-up. Paolo tried a sip of the 2009 Barolo Rupestris which was open and stood there with an odd look on his face. "It's strange..." he eventually says. He disappeared for a few minutes, before returning and saying, "Let's go grab another bottle. I can show you the bottle room." We walked through the other side of the facility to a rickety looking cage cable elevator. We began descending when Paolo says, "This is like Batman... it's very unsafe... and totally legal." Seemed about right! Though the elevator was just installed, since this bottle room was only added within the last two years, actually dug out of the ground. This room is underneath the ground outside, not the building itself. Yes indeed, here are many old bottles: 
It's not totally apparent, but that bottle on the right is 1927:
Some of these bottles were marked as "Riserva Privata," which I inquired about. Basically, when the DOCG certifies and approves a Barolo (taste, chemical analysis, etc), the winery tells them how large their barrel is and the consortium tells them how many bottles are approved for production. If they somehow happen to wind up with more bottles (perhaps a vessel held more wine than they expected) they are not legally allowed to sell them. As such, these bottles become the family's private reserve.
There was also a largely empty room here where they store the bottles once they are filled and prepare the pallets for shipment.
After our bat cave tour, it was back upstairs to dive into the 2009 Rupestris.
Flight 4 (1 Note)
As I started taking note of all the Chinato bottles in the room, Paolo says, "Would you like to try some Chinato?" Why, of course!
Closing
The vessel used to grind the herbs for the Chinato.
After finishing the Chinato we remained seated for an hour, talking about a myriad of wine related subjects. All was very interesting but I won't repeat all here. I think of particular note though was a conversation about collaboration, or lack thereof, in Barolo and Italy in general. Paolo commented how France, for example, is much more organized around their wine production and frequently people assist one another, and the community. In Italy, people act as if they have no problems so there is nothing ever to talk about. He says everyone is friendly to one another, but they rarely help one another. He says it's complicated bringing producers together to talk about their problems. For example, it'd be nice if producers of a similar mind regarding things like Organic farming could come together and collaborate, perhaps form an organization around it. But every man for himself. Same goes for classification of geographical areas. Everyone's just looking out for themselves. I inquired that it seems to me that this may also simply be a cultural difference between the Italians and the French, and he seemed to agree. Very interesting conversation that lead in all kinds of different directions. It does make sense, as it's quite clear that Barolo isn't nearly as organized around itself as Burgundy, for example, is.
We then got into more political topics, such as the near financial necessity to produce Barolo every year for producers and their lack of ability to really declassify wine. He commented that Barolo (which of course is a winery's top wine from Nebbiolo) probably shouldn't be made in every vintage, but it nearly always is. A bit of news to me was that there is not an IGT in Barolo... unlike many areas in Italy, you cannot produce an IGT wine in Barolo! In fact, I believe the entirety of Piedmont doesn't have IGT. This, among other things, really ties a producers hands to make a Barolo every year, which in the end lowers the overall quality of the Barolo name in those subpar vintages. Interesting stuff indeed!
Overall we had a fantastic visit, primarily with Paolo. At the end he mentioned that Augusto was hoping to meet us but apologized that he had a last minute piece of business he had to take care of so he was unable to join. Unfortunate, but we still had an incredible visit here! It's really amazing the history of this place... one of the most historic in all of Barolo.
Afterwards we went to Vinoteca Centro Storico for lunch in Serralunga d'Alba and had one of the top two meals of our time in Barolo. A very quaint, family operated restaurant with incredibly flavorful food. After lunch we walked a bit around Serralunga, which has fantastic views of the valley below. 
Follow the trail onto Guiseppe Rinaldi...
2013 Cappellano Barolo Piè Rupestris Otin Fiorin (Gabutti)
Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo
Barrel sample at just ~8 months of age. Lots of people are already speaking the praises of 2013, but there was a much more conservative approach here, saying, "We'll see how it develops." I'm fine with not hyping things up too soon! We sampled two barrels of Rupestris, which I think accounts for the whole of the vintage. The first barrel was an older Gamberllotto one. As expected, this was imposingly structured. Just incredibly grippy on the finish, but the palate did offer a lighter expression of fruit. The other barrel was a Franz Stockinger. This was a bit more showy on the nose, but also showing imposing structure throughout. Very interesting to drink these at this stage of evolution, but for me, it's not revealing much of what this wine will become.
Post a Comment / 2 people found this helpful, do you? Yes - No
2013 Cappellano Barolo Piè Franco Otin Fiorin (Gabutti)
Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo
Barrel sample at the winery at just ~8 months of age. There's only one large (~45HL) barrel of the Franco, and it's resting in a Franz Stockinger barrel. This is much more showy than the Rupestris, offering the typical high tones of this wine. Quite floral and pretty, and already sexy aromatic texture and litheness. Similarly more expressive on the palate, which had a nice light texture, but far more depth of flavor before the incredible tannic clout took over. These tannins were however incredibly fine grained. I bet this is going to be wonderful.
Read 2 Comments / Post a Comment / 4 people found this helpful, do you? Yes - No