Barolo 2018 vintage report plus top-scoring wines

The Barolo 2018 vintage has produced some delicious, open-knit and approachable wines due to moderate acidity and ripe tannins, as well as good complexity displayed in the top examples. But mostly, it’s just very tasty!

Is it a great vintage? Probably not, but only because the ageing potential is supposedly shorter.

Barolo 2018

A warm, rainy vintage with a sub-zero February and a very wet May. Downy mildew and localised hail posed problems for some producers. Village-level Barolo is of variable quality; many are excessively dilute. The best wines show sweet tannins, concentration and a degree of elegance.

3/5

Barolo 2018 growing season

The 2018 vintage started with a debate about the buds. At the beginning of the season, they initially appeared to be dried, a supposed outcome of the parched 2017 vintage. Yet it was not clear if that was the reason, or whether it was a result of the winter frost. ‘We had an arctic descent in February with temperatures in the Langhe plunging to -7° to -8°C,’ says Edmondo Bonelli, Consorzio Albeisa producer association’s viticultural consultant. ‘In my opinion, the dried buds were a result of the frost.’

May was very rainy. ‘It was difficult to go in the vineyards,’ notes Valter Fissore at Elvio Cogno (Novello), and Fabio Alessandria at GB Burlotto (Verduno) adds: ‘We had 22 to 23 days of rainfall in May. July was warm, but it still rained.

‘Our vines,’ Alessandria continues, ‘have always had ample access to water, so they soaked up a lot of potassium. The tartaric acid decreased while the pH levels increased. The maturity and integration of the tannins were very good. When you’re dealing with an acidic and tannic grape such as Nebbiolo, these are factors that will generally help in the approachability of the wine. The 2018s are very tasty, but there is also a downside in them having less of an ability to age in the bottle.’

The warm character of the year – a rainy but not cool vintage – has been described by some producers as almost tropical. Several occurrences of Downy mildew were reported and Serralunga was also stricken by hail. Some of the top wines, such as Roberto Conterno’s Monfortino, were not produced.

See the top scorers from Aldo’s Barolo 2018 & Barolo Riserva 2016 reports

See all 109 Barolo 2018 wines tasted

Decent outcome

In the end, 2018 was quite consistent with vintages when harvest occurs around 4-5 October. This is just a week earlier than average in years when the timing is regarded as ideal, in the second week of the month.

‘We reintroduced submerged cap maceration. The grapes were delicious and the tannins well integrated,’ reports Maria Teresa Mascarello in Barolo. Bonelli compares the 2018 vintage with 2009, while for Mauro Veglio (La Morra) it appears like the very good 2004 vintage, which followed a dry and warm 2003.

All in all, 2018 was obviously not a top vintage, as several producers openly admit. Alessandria at GB Burlotto defines the 2018 vintage as more inviting to drink compared to 2017: ‘Perhaps the 2017 will be longer-lasting while the 2018 will be ready to drink in the next 10 years.’

In my opinion, yields were critical for success: some estates needed to recover production after the shortage of the drought-affected 2017, and this seems to be most evident with village-level 2018s, which are often excessively dilute.

In terms of village performance, La Morra and Barolo recovered well compared to 2017, while Monforte performed very impressively in both vintages. Serralunga suffered a bit more in 2018 compared to 2017.

And while this vintage is ultimately marked by the higher quality of Barolo at MGA-level, I agree with Maria Teresa Mascarello’s claims that Langhe Nebbiolo and Nebbiolo d’Alba 2019 or 2020 could be better than the village-level Barolo 2018s.

Should we start to think of Barolo in a different way compared to the stern, traditional model of the past decades? Probably, yes – and this should not necessarily be interpreted as bad news.

Roberto Conterno is just one producer who is considering bottling his Barolos one year earlier in response to the effects of climate change.

Aldo’s top Barolo 2018 recommendations

Wines tasted in February 2022 in Alba at the annual Nebbiolo Prima event, the vintage preview organised by Consorzio Albeisa

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