Inch Vintage

Wine importers and Italian vintages

When its three warmest cities - Bolzano again, Florence and Palermo - are separated by spectacularly varying countryside, of which 80 percent is made up of climate-affecting hills and mountains? When even within a small area, weather conditions can fluctuate wildly (vineyards in Valpolicella this August received nearly five inches of rainfall; half an hour to the north, twice that amount fell)? And when the range of grape varieties is so vast that harvest can occur at any point between mid-August (Soave this year) and late October (Soave's garganega), even early November for Taurasi? How can sweeping statements be made about years that were all good and harvests that were all bad?

It's possible to divide Italian vintages into four categories: "voluptuous years," "classic years," "misunderstood years" and "regional years."

In Italy, voluptuous years are the easiest to understand. They're the only ones about which you can generally generalize. Take 1997. It's widely acknowledged as a fantastic year in both Piedmont and Tuscany, producing lush, round, appealing wines across the board. The same goes for 2000, another hot year harvesting early throughout the country's vineyards. To repeat an apt description penned by Andrea Sturniolo, these are plump wines that are "sagging under the weight of an unnaturally large bosom." They have a soft fleshiness about them, which is all very fine, but which means they won't survive long in the cellar, and therefore won't develop all the fine nuances that Nebbiolo and Sangiovese are famous for. The same goes for 2003. You'll find plenty of big, lush, sexy wines up and down the boot, but with glaring heat instead of the prolonged gentle warmth necessary to ripen the tannins, these, too, will be early-drinking wines only.

Better wines, the "classic vintages" with a steely thread of resilience and nervy acidity turn up more frequently, but - and this is why they become less easy to spot - often from years with less-than-perfect weather conditions. The 1996 vintage is classic in Piedmont; the wines are generally stunning, the result of a satisfactory, but not baking-hot, season. But beware: The Langhe is a smallish part of a large area in which wine quality did vary. In Tuscany, the '96s are less than extraordinary and sometimes ordinary. More uniform is 1999, with firm, structured wines from Barolo and Barbaresco, full of muscle and guts; and from Tuscany, too, with Sangiovese packing the power of 1997 combined with the elegance of 1998. But conditions in 1999 were dicey. In the north, a damp, miserable August had things looking pretty poor for awhile; in Tuscany, high yields appeared to be threatening juice concentration. Which goes to show that early reports are not to be believed. Consider 2001, which shows some classic quality too, with fine wines emerging from both Tuscany and Piedmont (especially from the Langhe). But for awhile it didn't seem possible: Frosts devastated the crop at budbreak in Piedmont, and rain severely undermined the quality of the Tuscan fruit. Fortunately autumn sunshine effected an almost total turnaround; the 2001s are just about ready for drinking now - take care not to let the 2000s eclipse them.

Misunderstood years are the trickiest to come to grips with, yet they are the source for many a satisfying bargain. It's knowing that 1998 is a quietly confident year; its elegant and poised wines come from a typically Italian vintage with successive highs and lows, that eventually turned out right in the end. But 1998 is misunderstood; it is almost totally overshadowed by the flamboyant 1997s.

The ultimate misconception, however, attaches itself to the 2002 vintage, which was rated highly in Sicily, but marked down as dreary nearly everywhere else. Wrongly. Its great failing is lack of homogeneity, but tune-in more closely and there are some sure-fire 2002 successes. While Piedmont was maligned for its raininess, Barolo lovers should know that the rain stopped on September 15th, which meant that the late-ripening nebbiolo had plenty of time in which to dry out and perform beautifully. Verduno in Barolo, for example, escaped most of the rain and hail, and made great wines. And the same was true in the Alto Adige where early-harvesting pinot grigio may have been troubled by excess humidity, but sauvignon, chardonnay, moscato and pinot noir fared far better. The opposite was true in the Maremma, where merlot and the early grapes caught the best harvest weather, but Tuscan sangiovese received the worst of this cold, wet growing season with rain all through picking.

Misinterpreting 2005 would be a mistake, too: In a mirror-image of 2002, in Piedmont, the early-ripening dolcetto came off well, while the nebbiolo harvested later had to contend with chill weather and bouts of rain. Reds generally came off badly due to these end-of-season climatic calamities, but all that coolness made for many elegant white wines that shouldn't be ignored.

A side-step away from the misunderstood vintage is the regional one: good in isolated areas, but not in others. Case in point: the 2004s, which have classic richness from Tuscany, with considerable elegance, but not quite the same panache in the north or to the south, where early-ripening varieties struggled. Other regional vintages include 1988 (small quantities everywhere, with real greatness achieved only in Montalcino); 1989 (successful only in Piedmont); 1994 (rained-out in Piedmont, but notable in Tuscany); and 1995 (hard times in Piedmont, so Barolo and Barbaresco were easily outdone by Chianti Classico).

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