This Is Our Most Out There, Wonderful Offer Ever
– A Stealth Winery from an Ancient Family
– 2,500 Years in the Wine Business
– Over 400 Years of Winemaking
As Great As the Greatest
– That Magical and Ultra Rare Combination of Elegance and Finesse
– I’ve Had a Lot of These with Age and They Are Magic
– Our Most Experienced Nebbiolo Collectors Revere These
– A Stealth Winery from an Ancient Family-
– 2,500 Years in the Wine Business
– Over 400 Years of Winemaking
The House Style
– More Old School Than Any Langhe Nebbiolo or Barbaresco Made Today
– Remarkable Traditional Nebbiolos
– Stored in Old Neutral Barrels Until Their Recent Bottling
– Some of the Most Spectacular Wines in Italy Bar None
– Really Unlike Almost Anything Made Today
2019 Rocche Di Barbari Langhe Nebbiolo “Primanebbia”
– A Stunning Baby Barbaresco(Barbaresco Terroir)
– An Introduction to the Estate’s Style at a Much Lower Price
– Wines that Are About Aromatics, Balance, Elegance
– As Much Liquid Poetry As It Is Wine
– A Spiritual Wine
– Creates a Wave of Emotion in the Drinker
– Everyone Needs to Get This Wine and Try It
– Soaring Nose of Spices, Roses, Cherries and Tar
– Intoxicating
– Palate: Unreal Elegance
– Deep, Ripe, Rich and Complex
– So Dense, So Concentrated and So Juicy
– More Sozet/Cuchet-Beliando Than Anything in the Langhe
– Amazing Fruit / Case Pricing $38.99
– Under $40 from the Langhe, I Have Never Tasted Anything Like This
In the Same League As the Best – Mascarello, Burlotto, Giacosa
Those be some fighting words.
But I’ve had enough old Rocche dei Barbari to say that with conviction.
They have that certain finesse and elegance that you only get with the elite wines of the Langhe.
Today ‘s offer was going to originally be about two wines but I opened the 2019 Primanebbia Langhe Nebbiolo last night to refresh my memory of the wine and was so blown away by the quality and beauty of this wine that I knew the offer could only be about this wine. I will include two tasting notes as my visceral tasting note last night is worth all of you reading it in its entirety.
Bar none, this wine is the most underrated elite Italian wine in the entire portfolio, and in my career it’s the most underrated elite Italian wine I have ever encountered. A wine of elite beauty and deliciousness and has one foot firmly in old school Piemonte and one foot firmly in the current day, in that this wine has no flaws due to a shunning of technology.
Today’s wine
Today’s Langhe Nebbiolo is the finest I have ever had. It is a spiritual wine. Wines so good, so moving they create a wave of emotion in the drinker. This is a Langhe Nebbiolo from what I now consider the classic old school master of the Langhe. Rocche de Barbari makes uncompromising winemakers seem compromising.
This wine is made the way they were made in the days before the “Barolo Boys.” Long, slow extractions. An emphasis on the secondary characterisitcs that make nebbiolo great, not on getting the maximum amount of fruit. But the fruit they do get is extraordinary.
Yes, I know, there’s many old school masters. Bartolo Mascarello, Giuseppe Mascarello, Giuseppe Rinaldi, Cappelano and so on. But do they make a Langhe Nebbiolo as good as today’s wine. The answer is quite simple. Absolutely not. It’s a wine that puts to shame most Barolo and Barbaresco. This is a winery that is incomparable in the Langhe and one has to go to some of the more “head in the clouds” growers of France to really understand what is going on at Rocche de Barbari. They are more Sozet/Cuchet-Beliando/Bel Air Marquis d’Aligre than anything in the Langhe. See the bottom of the email for their aging state of the art aging bottling and aging system. They basically bottle on demand and have one bottling a year.
The 2019 Rocche dei Barbari Langhe Nebbiolo “Primanebbia” can be had for $43.99 a bottle and $41.99 on a 4-pack. and $39.99 on a 12 bottle case They raised their prices due to being shut down for 18 months during the pandemic and I have significantly lowered my margins to to get this to under $40 pricing. If there is ever a reason to buy a case of $40 Langhe Nebbiolo this is it. This is as big a no brainer case purchase as I’ve ever offered. It is better than so many Baroli-Babareesco at twice the price.
Below is my more formal tasting note.
As soon as you open this and pour out a glass you get a soaring nose of spices, roses, cherries and tar. Super ethereal. Also wild mint. Tree bark. Old chestnut. What a nose. Mesmerizing. Just so so aromatic. Tar, roses galore, sawdust, old books, ash, smoke, game, hint of spice and mint. Insanely complex. Dizzying aromas right out of the bottle. Wow these wines are something else. Intoxicating aromas and seems much finer than the 15 (last vintage we sold). It is much much finer than the 15 which was wonderful but this 19 is on another level. This is simply a stink h stunning wine.
Palate is wonderful. So refined and juicy. The elegance here is unreal. Deep, ripe, rich and complex. This really reminds of a top, top 2013. It has that unreal core of classic cherry fruit. It’s so pure. My goodness this is pure. Wonderful length and purity. Really fine and elegant tannins. So juicy. Tons of ripe mid season cherries. Tannins get more pronounced as this airs and air is this wine’s best friend. This Langhe Nebbiolo crushes many a producer’s Barbaresco. It gains elegance, sweet fruit and insane depth. What a wine. The sweetness of the fruit is remarkable. There are no hard edges here. There are always hard edges on Langhe Nebbiolo. Even from well established top producers. So dense, so concentrated and so juicy. Insane top 1% freshness. Amazing fruit and finish. As it airs it gets some elegance and the tannins become velvety and more integrated. Chestnut vibes on this and just awesome length. Stays with you. Nose becomes 4 dimensional now on my 2nd pour. This is just insane quality for Langhe Nebbiolo. Spanks so many Barolo and Barbaresco. God this is so floral and nuanced now. Just impossible complexity for this level. Amazing fruit. This gets more and more elegant. Much more elegant than the 15. So much lift. Drinks like $80+ classic Barbaresco.
Here is my visceral tasting note from last night.
“Wow. Like wow. OMG this nose. Just the most vivid and deep early season cherry ever. Beautiful. So high pitched. Incredible. Cherry flower, spice and huge tar. Like wow. I am bowled over. Unreal florals as well. Just so much. Too much is not enough can describe this nose. 9.8 nose. Glorious palate of pure, classic, old school Nebbiolo done the Barbari way. Ultra refined and unreal sweetness of fruit and balance. Like the most explosive cherry ever and then a gentle mineral wash. Just perfect Langhe Nebbiolo. Out of this world. The fruit presence on this is just beyond. So much clarity. Unreal sweetness like only Nebbiolo can do. Not that complex but the delicious factor is better than any Langhe Nebbiolo I have ever had. The energy on the midpalate and finish are just electric yet run like refined gears on your palate. A wine that changes minute by minute. The nose had dizzying rose florals right now and deep minerals and just glorious spice. Now the finesse is kicking in and the tannins are becoming more substantial but the fruit remains sweet and the tannins velvety. Big time cuban tobacco on the nose now. It’s just divine.” – Lyle Fass
This is an offer that, for several reasons, is absolutely unheard of in the world of Langhe wines. It’s basically the opportunity to buy 1950s style Langhe wine in perfectly pristine condition.
Very Important Background
Bottle Variation: The Scourge of Old Langhe Wines. As we all know, Langhe wines are aged before bottling. For Barolo, they must be aged at least 38 months, at least 18 in barrel. For Barbaresco, this is 24 months, at least 9 of which must be in barrel. At this point, they may be bottled. And this is where the problems start. Bottles, as we all know, are sealed with corks and corks are natural products. The key thing that affects the aging curve of a wine is the amount of oxygen that the cork allows into the wine. Because all corks are different and allow different amounts of oxygen to seep in, bottles from the same vintage, producer and vineyard will age at different rates. So if you try 3 bottles of a wine, one could be perfect, one could be too young and one could be over the hill. The problem is that if you are spending $100 or more on old Langhe wines so you are really spending $300 a bottle for each good bottle.
The Solution: Barrel Ageing until Bottling.
What today’s producer has figured out is that if you leave the wine in the barrels until they are ready to bottle and drink, you eliminate the problem of cork variation. And this is what they do. They store them in large neutral barrels (or sometimes concrete after a time). Furthermore, every cork that they use is tested by both specialized equipment and experienced human testers to ensure that there is no cork taint (TCA). The wines are only bottled at the time of sale.
The Style: Old, Old, Old School
The style here is hyper traditional. We are talking very long and slow fermentations. Super long macerations. They are not trying to maximize extraction – it’s almost like they are trying to avoid extraction in order to allow secondary characteristics to shine through.
These are like wines that were made in the 1950s except, of course, they are bought from the cellar and using the process described above to preserve the wines on a consistent ageing curve.
The Family
I cannot tell you the name of the family but they have been in the wine business for a long time. The first records of them being in the wine business are from 492 BC. Yes that’s over 2,500 years. They have been making wine since 1585 (over 400 years).
Right now, they are in basically beta testing with their sales and plan to substantially increase prices once they make a formal announcement in a couple of years. I am not even allowed to mention the name of the winemaker, not even his first name.
This estate is maybe our best estate in Piedmont. But the offers have been sporadic because of their unique bottling system and they basically shut down for 18 months due to the pandemic and they had some internal issues and are just about to open back up. The family members are all treasures. They are earnest, kind and hardworking and are not motivated by commercial success. Perfect for Fass Selections. They are quirky and eccentric and I work on their schedule and will do whatever they want or need me to do as the wines are that good. They are unbelievable wines and have somewhat of a cult following at Fass Selections. The cult will get a lot bigger today.
Please call Cheryl at 949 378 5251 after emailing with your firstorder if you are a first time customer (we prefer not to receive credit card numbers over E-Mail).
OFFICE HOURS 4-7 PM
I love drinking and selecting wines – but my passion for teaching people about wine is almost as big. I’m happy to announce a block of time each day where people can call me just to chat about wine in general. These blocks are NOT intended to sell wine (I do that all day). This is to talk to me about wine pairings or great producers or how long to age wines or styles of wine making or the latest wine controversy. My goal is to help people learn more about wine and enjoy it more. Call me at 917-912-4355 from 4-7EST Monday – Friday.
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A Word about Fass Selections and Social Media
I am big into certain social media and I want people to take pictures of the wines they have received or will receive and tag me in them and share their thoughts. I a am on Instagram. Please tag me there. I also am on Delectable which I love a lot. It is Iphone/Ipad only, but it’s like Instagram meets Facebook for wine. Tag me there and find me there as well. I want to know if you liked the wine, were not moved by the wine, hated the wine or the wine gave you a religious experience. I want to know it all. Feedback is key and I will answer all feedback e-mails as quickly as I can.
For all billing and invoicing inquiries please contact Nick at accounts@fassselections.com or 646-498-6078