2022 Vietti, Barbera d’Alba DOC, Trevìe, Piemonte, Italy.
The opulent and ripe Vietti Trevìe Barbera d’Alba 2022 has a deep garnet,crimson color, delicate florals, hints of spice and has a lushfull bodied palate of crushed black raspberry, plum, red currant and cherry fruits, as well as background elements of anise, a touch of cedar, tangy herbs, lilacs and chakly stone. When you are looking for Barbera, La Spinetta and Vietti are always great and reliable choices, both come from pedigreed vineyard sites, with Vietti’s sourced from main vines in the Castiglione Falletto zone on classic limestine and clay marl soils. Barbera is noted for having silky tannins and bright acidity, which gives balance in warm years, though we’ve been seeing lately in the Piemonte region. Like the Barbera d’Asti Tre Vigne version, the Tevìe Barbera d’Alba is crafted with a cold maceration in stainless steel tank, then fermented, wth the skins in the musts for approximately 2 weeks, with gentile daily pumping over. After it goes dry Vietti typically leaves the wine for an extra week of maceration, then it is racked over to oak for malolactic conversation and raised in a combination of large cask, barriques and stainless barrels for a full 18 months to allow for depth, richness and balance. It is almost impossible not to love the Vietti Barbera bottlings and this one really impressed at a recent Piemonte blind tasting, being easily one of the favorites on the night.
As I’ve mentioned before, Vietti is a storied winery that dates back to the early years of the 20th Century when it was founded by Mario Vietti, who started bottling wines for himself and focused the family business on the grapes of the region. The biggest rise at Vietti was after World War II when Alfredo Currado, who married into the Vietti family by way of Luciana Vietti, in 1952 starting making wines from single vineyard sources, this was a new idea in Piedmonte’s Barolo zone, he was one of the first to vinify from Cru plots in famous sites such as as Brunate, Rocche and Villero, and he “cru-designated” the wines, also he helped save the local Roero white grape Arneis from extinction, and was later known as the “Father of Arneis”! And for the last few decades Vietti has had Luca Currado, who has now left to make his own wines with his wife Elena Penna and his children, making the wines and his super star status brought Vietti world wide fame. The Vietti wines come, as noted above, mostly from the Castiglione Falletto vineyards, in the heart of the Barolo zone, these are soulful and remarkable wines that show their terroir and character of sandy-calcareous soil that highlight this area and that gives them unique tannic spine, but with beauty in the nose and lovely elegant details. Vietti owners seem t be continuing the style that Luca has stamped on the lineup here and so far everything has remained as tasty as ever!
($28 Est.) 92 Points, grapelive