Brezza's Barolo Bricco Sarmassa: A Comparison Between Cork And Glass Stoppers

In much of the rest of the world non-cork closures for wine bottles have become quite normal, and are also used for top quality wines. In Italy there is pressure in this direction, but the Appellations and restaurants are less enthusiastic, as I noted in an IGP article I wrote after tasting Salcheto's Salcheto Evoluzione, their top wine, which was released this year as both Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, with a cork, and IGT, with a screw cap.

The wine spent four years in bottle prior to release, and in that case I preferred the screw cap to the cork.

At Brezza they are also experimenting with alternative closures, glass stoppers in which the seal is provided by a ring of inert silica, and Enzo was pouring three vintages during Nebbiolo Prima: the 2005, 2004, and 2003. Three very different vintages; 2005 was cool and wet, yielding wines that are greener and more acidic than is the norm, 2004 was very good, and 2003 was one of the hottest in living memory, yielding wines that are quite ripe and tend to be fairly soft.

To be honest, since I was struck by the freshness of the Salco Evoluzione with a screw cap, I expected to like the wine from bottles with glass stoppers better than that from bottles with corks, but it wasn't that easy. I tasted the wines, in pairs, blind.

2005

1: Brezza Barolo Bricco Sarmassa 2005 -- Cork
Pale fairly bright almandine with almandine in the rim. The bouquet is bright, with rich green leather and leaf tobacco supporting somewhat greenish accents and some berry fruit. The bouquet is slightly better defined than that of number 2. On the palate it's bright, with rich fresh berry fruit supported by lively slightly greenish berry fruit acidity and by tannins that have a pleasant warmth to them, and also some greenish spicy notes, and flow into a clean fresh fairly rich savory finish. Nice definition and depth, and quite upstanding; it has a bracing freshness to it, and also displays greater finesse than 2, with a crispness of focus that 2 doesn't quite manage.
90-91

2: Brezza Barolo Bricco Sarmassa 2005 -- Glass
Slightly duskier almandine with a bit more brick to it, and almandine rim. A touch darker, and not as bright. The bouquet is not as rich as 1; it's a touch muted, and has delicate greenish accents mingled with spice and slight jammy notes. It's not quite as fresh as number 1, though the difference is slight. On the palate it's ample and rich, and a bit broader than 1, with fairly rich fruit that's supported by acidity that's not quite as bright, and by tannins that are smooth and do have a savory burr, and flow into a fairly long broad finish with marked savory underpinning. Very pleasant, and though still quite young is a wine one could drink now.
88-90

2004

1: Brezza Barolo Bricco Sarmassa 2004 -- Glass
Elegant ruby with black reflections and hints of almandine in the rim. The bouquet is rich, and elegant, with rather languid sour cherry fruit laced with rosa canina and leaf tobacco; it's richer and more complex than either of the 2005 wines, and also displays considerable and pleasing freshness, with some rather languid accents as well. A lot going on. On the palate it's bright, with rich savory sour cherry fruit supported by deft berry fruit acidity and tannins that have a slight splinteriness to them that is youth, but also a degree of steeliness and presage velvet. It's very young, but beginning to come into its own, though to really reach that point it needs a few more years. In a word, impressive.
91-2 glass

2: Brezza Barolo Bricco Sarmassa 2004 -- Cork
Elegant ruby with deep black reflections; it's very similar to 1, but 1 has a touch more almandine in the nail. Fresh, bright nose with fairly intense herbal notes, sage, hints rosemary, and steelyness, also sour berry fruit, some black pepper, and as it opens rosa canina and sea salt with some underlying iodine bitterness too. Quite harmonious, and by comparison with number one is a little more intense and perhaps more linear, with greater definition. Number one is instead more dispersed, for want of a better descriptor -- going in more directions at once. On the palate this is a touch more linear than number 1, with rich sour cherry fruit supported by berry fruit acidity and by tannins that are a little softer and smoother, and by pleasing savoryness as well, which flow into a fairly long sour cherry finish with a tannic savory underpinning. The two are very similar, but there is perhaps a touch more complexity to 1 -- an impression that may be just because it's not quite as tight, and therefore reveals more facets -- and a touch more finesse to 2.
91

2003

1: Brezza Barolo Bricco Sarmassa 2003 -- Cork
Elegant almandine with black reflections and some almandine in the rim. The bouquet is intense, with berry fruit and wood smoke mingled with green leather and bitter accents that bring dusky shadows to mind. It has a brooding quality to it, and also reveals a degree of heat. It feels blocky, somehow. On the palate it's full and rich, with ripe rather soft sour cherry fruit that has slight jammy accents and warmth, but isn't at all cooked -- something that was a problem for many in 2003 -- and is supported by fairly deft berry fruit acidity -- less than the 04, but there is enough for good direction -- and smooth tannins that have a slight greenish burr, and flow into an ample fairly soft tannic finish with a pleasant berry fruit underpinning
84

2: Barolo Bricco Sarmassa 2003 -- Glass
Elegant almandine with black reflections and some almandine in rim; by comparison number 1 has just a hint more orange. The bouquet is fresh, and very clean, with a degree of linearity to it, and clean berry fruit supported by spice and slight leaf tobacco; it displays a pleasing deftness and freshness to it, and doesn't have the shadowy bitterness that emerges from number 1. On the palate it's fll and rich, with powerful sour cherry fruit supported by moderately intense fairly bright greenish berry fruit acidity, and by tannins that are quite smooth, with a slight savory burr, and flow into a fairly long greenish sour berry fruit finish. By comparison with number 1 it is fresher and better defined, and also gives an impression of being cleaner. This is a question of degrees; I would have found number 1 impressive (considering the vintage) had I not also tasted number 2, which goes much, much further.
91-2

The bottom line is that, barring cork problems (of which see below) the differences between the wines with cork stoppers and those with glass stoppers are minimal, subtleties that one detects because one knows that the closures are different, and sets out to find them.

Were one pouring from both bottles in the course of a dinner, and drinking the wines with foods, rather than scrutinizing them while sitting at a table in a quiet room, one would likely not note the differences between the wines from the first two vintages (2005 and 2004), and this is a good thing, because as Enzo notes, the world's supply of good quality cooks is finite, and finding top quality corks is becoming steadily more expensive and more difficult.

The fact that alternative closures do give results as good as these after several years offers assurances for the future.

In the 2003 vintage there was a much more marked difference, because the cork hadn't held as well as it should have. Enzo, who drinks the wine often, said the one that had been closed with a cork was dead, and while I wasn't that drastic it did show poorly by comparison with the wine that had been in the bottle with the glass stopper.

The final analysis shows (once again) that alternative stoppers do offer a viable alternative to cork. They may not contribute the way top quality corks can to a top quality wine, but, at least short-medium term intervals they will do no harm, and this -- as I have said before -- makes them ideal for wines destined to be drunk soon after bottling, which are the vast majority of wines on the market. For longer term aging the jury is still out, but so far the results are promising.

Brezza is a very fine, very traditional -- while I was tasting Enzo's father was serving some clients, and when one of them asked if he had any barriqued wines, sputtered mightily -- winery in Barolo. In addition to making wine they have a hotel and restaurant, that would be a nice base for exploring this part of the Langhe.

For more information, check their site.

Garantito IGP : On Corks and Alternatives

If you drink wine sealed with corks you will sooner or later come across a bottle that is corked.

This is not good; ideally the aroma will be of that unpleasantly metallic gassy frizz-your-hair-and-make-your-eyes-water variety, which leads you to refuse the bottle if you're at a restaurant (arguing with the owner if need be) or ask for another bottle if you're at a tasting. Unfortunately, cork taint is not always this obvious. Quite the contrary, it can be subtle, and in its most pernicious form it simply casts a veil over the aromas, making the wine seem drab and uninteresting. In this form it's easy to miss, because there's nothing really obviously wrong -- the wine just seems humdrum, and there's certainly a lot of humdrum wine out there. However, if you do taste a second bottle of the wine, the difference is like the sun emerging from behind a cloud.

As you might guess, this latter sort of cork taint -- which I find to affect between 5 and 10% of the wines I taste -- gives winemakers fits. And there are solutions, for example synthetic corks, glass stoppers with silica rings, and screw caps. All of which (screw caps especially) are by now quite common outside of Italy. However, in Italy there is still considerable resistance to alternative closures, on the part of the Appellations, which continue to call for cork, and on the part of the restaurant trade, which claims that screw caps and such eliminate the "poetry" inherent in uncorking the bottle and sniffing the cork and so on.

How anyone can find a product that ruins 10% of what it seals poetic is beyond me, but they do. However, things are beginning to change, thanks in part to winemakers sick of the damage they suffer from bad corks (price does not guarantee an absence of taint) and thanks in part to importers requesting non-cork closures.

In 2009 I tasted Paolo De Marchi's 2007 Chardonnay IGT Toscana, which he bottles with screw caps for those who want them, and corks for those who don't. It was quite interesting: The wines were both very good (90-91 points for both), but also quite different; the screw cap was fresher, while the cork was a little more mature, and I concluded that, "Comparing them side-by-side is like looking at a pair of twins, who might seem identical at first glance, but reveal differences as one gets to know them; the screw cap wine is just a touch crisper and has a slightly harder edge to it, whereas the cork-stoppered wine is a little softer, and comes across as slightly more seductive. Both are very fine, and which you prefer will be a matter of taste. To continue with the twins analogy, one trains competitively -- the screw cap -- while the other -- the cork stopper -- dances."

Now Paolo is also bottling Cepparello with a screw cap for foreign markets that request it.

The Azienda Salcheto in Montepulciano is being even bolder: They have taken the radical step of bottling half of the 2005 vintage of their signature wine, Salcheto Evoluzione, which spends four years in bottle prior to release, with screw caps and the other half with corks. The same wine, with the screw cap bottles classified IGT, and the cork-sealed bottles Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG, sold in boxed sets with one of each kind. As I said, a bold move, because it will oblige the many Italian consumers who greatly enjoy Salcheto Evoluzione to try a top quality wine with a screw cap closure of a kind still viewed with disdain here.




At Vinitaly we tasted them blind:

1 (the screw cap)
Fairly deep almandine ruby with black reflections and almandine rim that has faint hints of ruby to it. Fairly rich berry fruit with slight candied accents and clean bramble with some spice and delicate underbrush. Quite fresh, and displays considerable harmony. On the palate it's rich, deft, and elegant, with rich sour cherry fruit supported by brisk sour berry fruit acidity and slight underbrush, and by tannins that are warm and smooth, and flow into a clean bright tannic finish. Graceful, with beautiful acidity that interplays very well with the tannins, making a wine that is deft and quite light on its toes, rather like a dancer. It will go beautifully with a steak or roast, and will age quite nicely for many more years.
90-92

2 (the cork)
Fairly deep almandine ruby that has slightly more garnet to the rim. Moderately rich bouquet with berry fruit supported by warmth and slight balsamic accents with underlying greenish spice; it has a slightly ethereal feel to it and is somewhat more reserved than sample 1, while there are hints of cedar that don't stand out as much in the other. On the palate it's rich, with fairly bright sour cherry fruit supported by bright sour cherry acidity and by tannins that are quite smooth, and display a slight cedary burr that carries into a long fresh bright cherry finish. The tannins are a little smoother here, and display a greater degree of cedar and vanilla than those of sample 1, and this makes the wine a touch more settled than the first.
90

Both are quite elegant, and very pleasant to drink, to the point that one really cannot say that one is better and the other is worse. The first (which is the screw cap bottle) is slightly fresher, and a touch brighter, whereas the second is slightly more mature, and displays the oak to a greater degree.

A very interesting comparison, of a sort that would not be possible where screw caps are already commonly accepted. And quite impressive; the screw caps held very well, and were also more consistent -- there was some variation from one cork-stoppered bottle to the next, whereas the wine in the screw cap bottles was the same. And this brings up the question of what, exactly, the cork stoppered bottles, none of which suffered from cork taint, are getting from their corks. It turns out corks do release tannins into the wine, and also aromas, which Michele Manelli, Salcheto's Director, describes as "earthy and animal." And oxygen (which must be mopped up with a shot of sulfites to keep it from damaging the wine), even if the bottling line fills the neck of the bottle with inert gas.

The bottom line is that for wines to be drunk young, alternative closures are definitely a good idea, and given this the Nobile di Montepulciano Consorzio's decision to allow bottling Rosso di Montalcino with screw caps is quite interesting and -- for Italian Appellations -- potentially groundbreaking. For wines to be aged? Corks are potentially more interesting because of what they release, but there are several ifs. What is the quality of the cork, what tannins will it emit, and what aromas? In short, Michele says, corks in the long run are a roll of the dice. They may improve the wine, but they may not, and in this respect are like barriques, which can have more or less positive effects upon the wine they contain.

Bottom Line: I will continue to appreciate corks in bottles suitable for long aging, because when they contribute positively they can add wonderful nuances, but will certainly not look askance at a screw cap, even from the most august Appellation.



Published Simultaneously by IGP, I Giovani Promettenti.

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