WTF is Barbera? (Barbera d’Alba, Barbera d’Asti, red wine for Merlot fans and Gamay fans)

Episode Transcript

Hello! And welcome to the Wine Pair podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, and this is my wife and wine-pairing partner in crime Carmela. And we are the Wine Pair.

In today’s episode, we return to our WTF or What the Fuck series - you love that name, don’t you, Carmela?  In this series we explore wines that may not be so well known to those of you out there in listening land - and that we think you might like. That you may just want to give a try! The goal in this series is to try to introduce you to wines that you may not know much about, but that you may just end up liking, and that give you options other than stupid Cabernet and Merlot and Chardonnay.

Because, if you know anything about this podcast, you know that I do not like those wine varietals very much. Usually! Although, I will say, we had a nice Bordeaux style blend from Tuscany the other night with a  beef roast I had made, and it was excellent. It went really well with the meat, and the style of the wine was more subdued, and maybe mature, than the overly oaked fruit bombs we have in the US. Let’s put it this way, it did not instantly give me a headache!  It was called Passi Di Orma from 2016 - it is what they would call a Super Tuscan - and it was made of Merlot 40%Cabernet Sauvignon 35%Cabernet Franc 25%. Which is just not a mix I would usually ever pick out. So, it matters a lot where the wine is from, how it is made, etc. Some day I will have a real Bordeaux blend from Bordeaux so I can realize what I am missing. 

Ok, today in our WTF series we are going to introduce you to a wine called Barbera. Maybe some of you have heard of it, maybe some of you have not. Whatever. This is a wine from the northern part of Italy near the alps in the Piedmont area which is most well known for the Nebbiolo grape which makes the famous Barolo and Barbaresco wines. Now, those are wines I love, and are becoming actually much easier to find. In fact, I am amazed that at most stores you can easily find Barolos and Barbarescos. I don’t think that was the case 20-25 years ago. BUT - they do not fall into the very strict parameters for our podcast -  which is what, Carmela? Which is being reasonably priced. Most are in the $50-$150 range, sometimes more, and if you do find a Barolo or Barbaresco that is priced anywhere under $35, I would probably just not bother with it. Except if it is the Costco one! So, Barbera is a wine from a similar area that is much better priced - you can find good versions at or under $20, although it is a very different wine than a Barolo or a Barbaresco, so I don’t want to confuse you on that.

Interestingly enough, this is one of the first episodes where we are tasting an Italian wine, which is really funny, and our first Italian red. Don’t you think that is kind of funny? Why do you think it is funny?

• It is surprising to me because most of the wines that I probably know the best are Italian wines, and Italian wines are the wines I usually drink the most, although I have started to deviate from that quite a bit over the last few years. 

Now that we are like 13 episodes into our podcast, I wanted to really start focusing on some Italian wines. We didn’t want to choose Chianti for this particular series because I think people know about it - and again this series is for wines people probably don’t know about or have never tried - but we will cover it in future episodes for sure, probably in a different series like the Practical Pairings. But, we will for sure cover some great Italian wines that we love like Soave, Nebbiolo, Aglianico, Primitivo, Montepulciano, and others in future episodes. 

But first, as we do in every episode, we are going to take a left turn and talk about something that is only tangentially, and sometimes VERY tangentially, related to the topic - whether that is wine stuff in general, or the wine we are drinking, or the food we are eating, or even the season of the year. This time around we are going to discuss a little bit about wine glasses, and Carmela’s strange, probably passive aggressive habit, of breaking my wine glasses. 

For all of you in listening land, a few weeks ago Carmela broke one of my favorite wine glasses. Now, she has broken many wine glasses over time, and in fact, she had broken so many wine glasses that for my birthday or father’s day last year, she bought a whole new set of wine glasses - which were sort of for me, and sort of for her. Now, I will admit, there is a very fair reason why in general she has broken so many glasses, and this is because she is overwhelmingly the person who does most of the dishes at home. So it’s just odds. I know that is not fair, but it is just the way it tends to work out in our house. Send the hate mail. Send it. 

Now, the wine glass she broke was not a very expensive wine glass, but it was a style I really like - a style that is sort of made for Pinot Noir wines. It has a wider bottom to the bowl, and then tapers a bit to a thinner top. I just like the way that wine looks in the glass, and how easy it is to swirl and smell. We had two of them, and now we just have one, so I guess the one that is left is mine until you break it. So, my question is, did you break it on purpose?

Now, there are a lot of opinions on wine glasses, and we can, and probably will, spend time in several different episodes on wine glasses and proper wine etiquette. For instance, just so you know, you should always hold your wine glass by the stem and never hold your wine glass by the bowl, but I digress, and that is definitely a topic for another podcast episode. 

I really like wine glasses, and the other day I bought some new wine glasses that most people would not think are wine glasses at all. They are little five ounce glasses that look like juice glasses, but they are actually from Italy, and are classic wine glasses if you go into a wine bar in Italy, and I can remember as a kid family members using small, stemless glasses, like these glasses, as the dinner wine glass. I also recall going into wine bars in Italy and just seeing people getting off work and heading home stop in, get a glass of wine in one of these little wine glasses, pound the wine down, and move on - like an espresso. I think buying these glasses may have set you off, though, Carmela. Do you think I buy too many things? You were also a little irritated that I bought new glasses when we didn’t have room for them, so we are starting to clean out our glassware cupboard. Which I think is a good thing in general - if you buy something new, you should get rid of something. Which I am not very good about. Thoughts?

Now, I will just say a few things about these little stemless wine glasses that look like juice glasses.

1. They are way better than stemless wine glasses that just look like the top of a wine glass. Those are not very practical, and sort of defeat the purpose of a stemmed wine glass. A stemmed wine glass is important for two reasons - it allows you to swirl the wine, and it keeps your fingerprints off of the glass. These are better because they are sturdier - won’t tip over, and don’t confuse the user by giving a “sort of” wine glass. 
2. They are really for wines that you are just going to drink and you are not overly worried about testing or learning about, etc. These are glasses for wines you know well, or that you don’t care about, and you just want to drink. If you want to really smell a wine and you need to swirl a wine to bring out its flavor profile, do not use these glasses. These are glasses for very practical drinking - they are not for wine tasting, they are not for pretension. I really like them. 

But they are probably driving you nuts, Carmela. 

Ok, before we get to the Barbera, I also want to give a shout out to a team mate of mine from work - Shun Grewal - who sent me some nice presents related to wine over the Holidays. The first are called Wine Nots and are “effervescent tablets that help cleanse mouth discoloration caused by red wine.” Now, I have never noticed mouth discoloration, but I suppose that is a thing. I looked it up, and evidently it can be caused by excessive red wine drinking. These are lemon/lime flavored and are gluten free, which is nice. Have not tried them yet, but maybe will tonight since we are drinking 3 red wines. 

The next is called Wine Wipes - and these are evidently sommelier approved - whatever that means, and there are 12 to a pack. These are also supposed to take care of red wine stains on teeth. Now, I have to say, I wonder if there is something going on with my friend Shun. These were part of a Holiday gift exchange party where we brought (virtually) gifts we liked - sort of like a white elephant, but instead of crappy gifts, we got good gifts. I will have to ask Shun about what is going on here with wine stains and teeth, and maybe we’ll have to have her on a future episode!

Anyway, let’s get to tasting so we can see what we think. Are you ready?

Wine

• So, again, all of these wines are Barberas, although one is a Barbera d’Asti, and two are Barbera d’Albas. These are both wines made from the Barbera grape and grown in Piedmont. 
• The reason they have different names is that there are from two different areas in Piedmont that are actually quite close to each other - just about 15 or so miles apart - but they make slightly different wines from the same grape, and come from slightly different soil. 
• Now Asti wine is probably most famous for Asti Spumante in the US - which is a sparkling white wine from the Asti area - that is now better known as Moscato d’Asti. 
• But this wine is very different from the sparkling version - this is a dry red wine.

And, after we taste and review these wines, we are going to compare the tastes and smells we think experienced with those of what would be expected from a Barbera

Wines

Wine: Mauro Veglio Barbera d’Alba

Region: Piedmont

Producer: Mauro Veglio

Year: 2020

Price: $19.99 (just squeaked under our goal price range)

Retailer: Total Wine

Alcohol: 15%

Rating: Joe  7 Carmela  5

Wine: Rocca Felice Barbera d’Alba

Region: Piedmont

Producer: Rocca Felice

Year: 2020

Price: $14.99

Retailer: Total Wine

Alcohol: 13%

Rating: Joe 5 Carmela 5

Wine: Vietti Barbera d’Asti

Region: Piedmont

Producer: Vietti

Year: 2018

Price: $18.49

Retailer: Total Wine

Alcohol: 14.5%

Rating: Joe  8 Carmela 6

Taste profiles expected

• Tart cherry, licorice, blackberry, dried herbs, black pepper. 
• Strawberry, sour cherry, raspberry, blueberry, black cherry, plum, violet, dried leaves, vanilla and baking spices.
• Juicy, relatively light bodied, acidic, low tannin

What is the wine we are finishing tonight? 

Well, that was super fun! 

Ok - for those of you who are still listening, we would love to hear from you. Tell us what you like and what you don’t like, tell us about some wines you want us to try, tell us if you want to be a guest on our show. Or, just tell us about a wine you love or you hate and we’ll chat it up. You can visit our website at thewinepairpodcast.com and leave a voice message or send us a note. You can comment or reach out on Instagram at thewinepairpodcast. You can reach out to us at joe@thewinepairpodcast.com and we would LOVE to hear your comments. And we hope you’ll subscribe and follow us and tell all your friends and family and enemies and loved ones and everyone!

Thanks for listening to the Wine Pair podcast, and we will see you next time. And, as we say, life is short, so stop drinking shitty wine