2013 Barolo & Piedmont Vintage

The Consorzio di Tutela Barolo Barbaresco Alba Langhe e Dogliani called 2013 a demanding year to manage in the field for all its varieties, given the crop load as well. A slow start to spring, with low average temperatures in March and April, held back the start of the vine's growth cycle; for Nebbiolo, bud break came late. From April through the whole of May the rain was abundant, an average of 210 mm over a rainy spell of 18 days in total, and growers faced the threat of fungal attack from the outset. The early spring was cool and May brought copious rain, with more wet days than dry ones, though the downpours built up water reserves for the summer. Disease, especially downy mildew, threatened the vines; some vineyards were too wet for tractors to spray, so treatments had to be done by hand, and growers who took the right steps in the vineyard limited the damage. Conditions improved gradually in June. Flowering was regular in the middle ten days of June, followed by good fruit set, and July was very positive for the vines, with more stable weather. August was hot, but not excessively so, with few summer days of very high temperatures, and mildew and downy mildew kept striking, making timely leaf removal and green harvesting essential. The vines never made up the delay built up in the earlier months. From August to harvest the climate suited phenolic ripening, with warm, bright days and cool nights, especially from the second half of September, and September and October were particularly calm, which allowed picking to be held back. Most growers picked relatively late, until temperatures dropped in mid-October. Picking began on average 15 days later than over the previous ten years and finished in early November with the last Nebbiolo. Good fruit set and water availability gave bunches that were on average larger, heavier and more compact than in recent years.

Stephen Brook found weather conditions fairly uniform across the region, but village-to-village differences were still discernible in the wines, though in some cases producer skill counted as much as local microclimate. Serralunga d'Alba produced some of the best bottles, with a welcome freshness and no over-extraction, and Castiglione Falletto was more consistent, with some lovely wines. The village of Barolo also showed well, despite a few slack and overripe wines, and Verduno produced some excellent bottles. La Morra was varied in style, with some obtrusive oak and some wines rather hard and possibly less than optimally ripe; Novello was a mixed bag, and Monforte d'Alba was slightly disappointing, with some weak and simple wines alongside more structured ones.

Brook found the wines, while structured, marked more by perfume and finesse than power, with tannins that are undoubtedly present but delicate and fine-grained. Nebbiolo gained most from the end of the season, when high temperatures in September and October helped it develop its phenolic profile and gave wines suited to ageing. Barbera suffered most from the year's weather in the Langhe and Roero; most likely because daytime temperatures were not excessively high and the most intense heat lasted less long than in recent years, less of the fixed acidity broke down, giving grapes with average sugar but high acidity. Where thinning and leaf removal were done at the right time and in the right way, the Consorzio expected long-lived, well-structured wines. Francesco Versio, oenologist at Bruno Giacosa, told WineNews in October 2013 that the rains brought a slight step back after a generally good overall condition, that the first Nebbiolo looked good, and that the high acidity stood out and could point to good ageing potential (translated from Italian).

Brook called 2013 a very good vintage in Barolo, and not an easy one to compare with its predecessors. The wines show slightly less grip than in the 2010s, more freshness and zest than the fleshier 2011s, and more structure and complexity than the 2012s. Some wines seemed quite forward when tasted in 2017, but many, including some that seemed a tad disappointing, were expected to blossom after a few more years in bottle. The Consorzio wrote that the 2013 harvest would be remembered as "vintage" because picking started late, and WineNews saw Piedmont's delayed harvest, especially for Nebbiolo for Barolo, as a return to harvests of the past. The Consorzio's verdict was that where thinning and leaf removal were well timed, 2013 would be an excellent vintage ("un'ottima annata").