I’ve been fairly surprised by how few people seem to be in some of the places I’ve visited here in Piedmont. There’s no doubt that high season is later in the fall when the big truffle celebration goes on for weeks but I expected to see more people and have to deal with some waits. The weather hasn’t been great and I think that’s a factor. Anyway, it allowed me to have a completely private and personal tasting session at Borgogno in the heart of Barolo.

These wineries may have storied names, but they’re all new to me. But I’ll have to say I’ll be looking these up again. Here I tried a set of reds. From a simple Barbera D’Alba to the beefiest Barolos.

Not knowing much better, I let my tasting guide, Andrea, make some suggestions for me. He’s pictured in the upper right photo pouring one of the wines. The final 3 wines (on the left) were the most interesting wines to me. First, the “No Name”. He had to tell me some of the story there. Apparently it’s a ‘protest’ wine. It can’t be called “Barolo” because of some technicality in the Italian laws so they went out of their way with the name (or rather, no name) to make a point. I didn’t bother to get into the details of the local laws but suffice to say it apparently irritates some of the winemakers.

The No Name was decidedly lighter and fruiter in character than the other two true Barolos I tried. Of those two, my clear favorite was the 2009 Liste. Liste is the name of the vineyard. This one was 4 years on oak, one in bottle. By contrast the 2007 Riserva was said to have been aged 6 years on oak, one in bottle. The Liste seemed ready to drink now, while the other was quite a bit more tannic for my taste.

Really enjoyed the tasting here and Andrea was really helpful. Andrea also let me take the clear glass elevator up to the top terrace roof deck. Very nice birds eye view. I took some photos there of the countryside before heading on to snag lunch.