A well-known saying in wine is that the talent and skill of the best wineries and their staffs really come to the fore in the difficult years. The thinking being that anyone can manage in a good year to come up with something that’s at least palatable. By contrast, the weather-challenged vintages separate the men from the boys, so to speak. Well, this was never truer than in reference to the extremely challenging 2022 vintage in Barolo. Simply put, this is a vintage in which the physical parameters of terroir take, at least in part, a back seat to the human ones. Sure, early results seem to show that it would appear people farming older vines planted on clay-rich soils were at an advantage (as always, there are exceptions), but that was not the rate-limiting step in 2022 to allow making if not memorable then at least good wines worth buying. For the most part, all the great names of Barolo did well. This includes both the really famous names like, in alphabetical order, Aldo Conterno, Bartolo Mascarello, Cogno, Giacomo Conterno, GB Burlotto; but also those really talented producers that are less in the spotlight than they probably deserve to be (Azelia, Barale, Mauro Molino) who really came through in 2022 and proved their mettle. To be clear, their Barolos are heads and shoulders above the year’s average output, which to be frank, is not generally good. To be frank, the year is “not better than expected” as some wine writers have pandered; but there were more good wines than anticipated, yes.
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