What's Pressoir Drinking?

Produttori del Barbaresco, Barbaresco 1978, in magnum

by Edouard Bourgeois

October 13, 2020

We pair wine with food, with friends. I even like to push the envelope further by trying to find the right music to play when I sip on a particular cuvée. But what about matching wine and mood?

This morning, I woke up to a rainy, apparently uninviting Tuesday, cold and gloomy. Looking around my apartment, an empty magnum I opened last week and saved as a trophy caught my eye. When I pulled the cork from this 42 year old Nebbiolo, the wine initially seemed ugly, almost limping, and certainly the opposite of a “fruit bomb”. As often with old Nebbiolo, the initial funk character you may smell should not discourage you. The magic rule? Decant, and wait, a long time. The wine does change over the course of a few hours as oxygen seems to be Barolo and Barbaresco’s best friend. I’m also convinced the drinker should also adapt to this metamorphosis. It is a true intellectual exercise where the taster has to be willing to make an effort to understand the wine, just like the first time you heard the curious music of Thelonious Monk, not immediately being able to capture the beauty and humor in his choppy piano strides.

1978 blessed the Piedmont with grapes able to produce ideal, age-worthy wines. It was also the last vintage of the first cellar master at Produttori del Barbaresco Giorgio Boffa. This wine evolved so much, it felt like tasting multiple wines as each layer unveiled as time went by.

So, did I manage to pair the wine and mood? Yes. As the wine unfolded, the mood of the people who shared this magnum with me also evolved to eventually harmonize with the profile of the wine.