Vintage Report: Piedmont 2022

The best 2022s from Barolo and Barbaresco are fruit-forward and yielding, with neat tannins and limpid red cherry, plum and ripe strawberry aromatics that delight from the outset. They provide a lucid account of a year that really only has one story arc; it was hot and dry; and growers had to work to maintain freshness from beginning to end. 2022 is a not a vintage of layered narratives, but by focusing on the best producers – those with deep roots both literally and figuratively – the results surpass expectations.

The wines are kindly, effusive, and more succulently fruited (less lush and broad) than other hot years – certainly more than we anticipated. It is true that they are unlikely to have the same long-term potential as in the past three vintages but what the 2022s have in their favour is genuine drink appeal.

Attentive growers put this down to a combination of early harvesting (most estates were finished by the first days of October), better canopy management (working to shade the grapes from the sun) and selective green harvests (cutting away sub-par fruit early on) to alleviate stress on the vine in the peak summer months. In drought conditions, the vineyard shuts down and maturation slows under the weight of accumulated heat. Warm nights meant that the vines were never energised in any real cool relief, so sugar levels, counterintuitively, did not race ahead in any meaningful way. Consider the summer of 2022 as a steady mountain hike toward harvest, suffused with the aromas of wildflowers and sweeping views that are felt in the final wines. Slow growth meant that phenolic ripeness (that of skin, seed and acidity) was more closely aligned to sugar development than in years marked by intermittent extremes of heat, which can cause the elements to develop unevenly. Yields were naturally low, and the juice concentrated. Effective cellar work was crucial to produce good wine, though we heard time and again of the vine’s ability to self-regulate over time – root systems in the best sites were forced to burrow deep to find veins of water – working to keep Nebbiolo’s broad leaves awake and drinking the light, the grapes fresh and balanced.

We are fortunate to taste with many of the Langhe’s most celebrated producers, so it is in that context that we encountered many excellent wines. By and large we were spared the excesses of inconsistency that others have reported. Our producers spoke of precise destalking, the inclusion of whole berries (for freshness and purity), shorter skin contacts at lower temperatures, and light pumpovers and soft pigeage in place of any longer, immersive submerged cap in cellars where it is ordinarily practiced. Reducing the overall length of time in barrel was common practice.

Much as the vines with the deepest roots navigated the 2022 drought most effectively, growers who understand the consequences of every ostensibly small decision had a clear game plan that had already begun in the dry winter before the vines had even budded. One cannot effectively retaliate against Mother Nature if the goal is to produce fine wines that respect both vintage and terroir, but it is evidently possible to pro-actively defend against extremes in the search for harmony. Those producers have made tough decisions and arrived in the end with wines worth buying.

Given the challenges of the year, it is true that buying selectively is important. After more than thirty years in Piedmont, we continue to do exactly that.

Mark Dearing

Italy Buyer, Justerini & Brooks.