Poderi e Cantine Oddero, Barolo

Our first day in Piemonte was absolutely lovely. We got up, had breakfast, jumped in the car and headed to Oddero, an historic Barolo producer.

The entrance to the cellar, built in 1870, was packed with detritus from throughout their history. The plates represent the most important festivals in the region, the middle pic shows an old pump and the far right shows some tools that were probably used in winemaking. Or proctology.

The main room of the cantina (cellar) was packed with Austrian-made Slovenian Oak barrels, which impart far less toasty/vanilla flavor than French oak and are used very frequently in the Langhe hills, of which Barolo is the most famous subregion. The dark barrels in the back of the third picture are particularly noteworthy -- they were constructed in the cellar and, at 105 hectaliters, are so big that they'd have to be broken into pieces to be removed.

Quick Barolo primer: Barolo is a wine region AND a wine, which is made from the Nebbiolo grape, and is among the most famous (and expensive) wines in Italy. Barolo must age at least two years in oak and one year in the bottle. Though there are plenty of people outside of Barolo that make delicious Nebbiolos, the across-the-board quality of Barolos put them in a class by themselves.

These are the sort of things that the Italian Wine Association is going to explain to people. We won't always be able to drink Barolos, but when we do they're gonna be great ones.

Oddero grows most of their grapes on the cantina grounds, but some of the vineyards are as far as 30KM away. The sign shown here is on a tank containing a Barolo made from grapes from only one vineyard -- Vigna Ronda. Some of it will be bottled as a Vigna Rionda Single Vineyard Barolo and some of it will be used as part of a blend.

We tasted four of their wines, starting with a 2008 Barbera d'Alba, then headed right into the 2006 Barolos. The first Barolo was a blend, the second was from their Villero vineyard and the third from Bussia Soprano, the Oddero-owned section of the giant Vigna Mondoca vineyard. Single vineyard wines are a relatively new phenomenon in Italy, and both of them were unique and wonderful.

10% of each of these Barolos were aged in barriques -- small french oak barrels -- for six months, then blended with the other 90% waiting in the giant Slovenian oak barrels. This adds a little bit of toasty vanilla flavor, and makes the wine softer, gentler and rounder. Traditional Barolos are very harsh and tannic, undrinkable for the first several years of it's life, and using barriques mitigates this somewhat. The practice is the subject of debate.

The corkscrew was a powerhouse as well-- it looked like a tommy gun and handled the extra-long Barolo corks with ease. Take notes, Santa.