To all Best Winers,
Remember our offer on the 2009 Barbaresco wines from Paitin this past March?
We’ve reprinted the highlights below for a refresher…
Azienda Agricola Paitin co-proprietor Giovanni Pasquero-Elia is a really nice guy. People like him. He doesn’t burn bridges. He’s congenial, friendly and, along with his brother Silvano, has produced some of the finest Barbaresco wines in the entire zone, especially considering the reasonable prices charged.
But you could tell Giovanni was a tortured soul when it came to his wines. I was at the winery a few years back and I could see the brothers had one foot in the ‘new school’ camp (roto-fermenters, some small French oak barrels) and one foot in the ‘modern classic’ camp, as the boys also were experimenting with more traditional fermentation techniques and you could see the larger Slavonian barrels for aging, as opposed to the tiny French ones, starting to stack up in the cellar.
Just who was Paitin going to be moving forward? Fortunately, one of Giovanni’s old buddies from school would help them answer that question. The buddies name? Dante Scagliola. The buddies ‘day job’? Winemaker for Bruno Giacosa.
That’s right, Giovanni’s buddy, who was kind enough to help them out, is the same guy that has produced many of the most compelling Nebbiolo-based wines in the last 20 years, in both Barolo and Barbaresco, at one of the zone’s greatest estates! His soulful, classic, unfettered take on the genre is legend, and people happily pay $200-$300 a bottle for Giacosa’s top bottlings, which Dante hand crafts.
Could Dante sprinkle some of that Nebbiolo pixie dust over the Paitin wines and move them even further up the qualitative ladder? In a word, yup!
These new releases from Paitin are groundbreaking efforts, even for this stalwart, top drawer producer. There is a greater sense of purity now, a warmer feel to all that balsamic-laced cherry fruit. Tender yet powerful, this vinous duo from Paitin captures the feel and polish of something that Dante could have crafted for old man Giacosa, but at 1/10th the price!
We sold quite a bit of wine. And why not? Their 2009’s were the two finest values in Barbaresco perhaps ever produced.
Until their 2010’s showed up.
Good gravy, Giovanni, Silvano and Dante have outdone themselves yet again. Not only is this titanic trio now producing the finest wines in Barbaresco, they’re still doing it at amazing prices.
Man, do we need more folks like these cats. Their 2010 wines are in the running for ‘Best of’ from the whole region, with ridiculously great press behind them. No finished bottle of 2010 Barberesco (or 2009 for that matter!) scored higher from Antonio Galloni than Paitin’s Sori Paitin. 95 points. For Galloni that is huge number.
In that situation a winery from the new world (I won’t mention any places in particular but it starts with a ‘C’ and ends in an ‘A’) probably would have made their wine ‘mailing list only’ and doubled the price.
Not these guys. Their greatest wine from one of Barbaresco’s greatest vintages took a monster price increase of exactly…$3. Bless them.
But, as usual, it gets better. Their Barbaresco Serra 2010 is hands down the greatest value in Barbaresco, even trumping the great Produttori del Barbaresco ‘Normale’ of which I’m a huge fan. Paitin’s Serra nabbed a well-deserved ‘93’ from Galloni for this blend of vines from Serraboella, Sori Paitin and other younger vineyards. That is exactly the same score, from the same vintage, as Angelo Gaja’s Barbaresco. That wine sells for $225. Paitin’s Serra? $27.88. Hmm…let me think about that one for a minute. Buy!
Folks, if you’re putting some fine Nebbiolo in your cellar now is the time. We still have a few cases total of the 2009's and we'll list them below. We'll also have some more great offers for you over the coming months but in all honesty we’re not sure if well be able to ‘one-up’ this one…
Kyle Meyer and Tristen Beamon, Proprietors, BestWinesOnline.com
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