What is your "hit rate" for old Nebbiolo?

I’ve always heard that Nebbiolo based wines are amazing to drink old. I’ve had a few really nice examples, but my “hit rate” is very low. Over the past year or so I’ve had 10 old Nebbiolo wines from Northern Italy, and only 3 have been any good. The first two were nice, so I went on a bit of an ill-informed buying spree, and was overall very disappointed.

Is 30% an acceptable hit rate on such old wines? I can’t afford Conterno and Mascarello all the time, but maybe these producers are just not high quality enough? Am I simply too ambitious in how old these wines are? It is not lost on me that the best of the bunch is the youngest (though still almost 40 yrs old).

They were all purchased from reputable places (Chambers St Wine, Benchmark, a few others). I don’t know the full provenance, but the sellers are all supposedly excellent.

What kind of hit rates do you get from your old Nebbiolo? Any advice for me? The 3 that were good were really excellent experiences- I don’t want to give up on old Nebbiolo!

1967 Franco Fiorina Barolo- Took several hours to come around, but in the end was quite good. Still quite bold.

1967 Renato Ratti Barolo Marcenasco- Delicious, delicate.

1971 Marchesi di Barolo Vecchio Maniero Barolo- Undrinkable. Right down the drain.

1967 Umberto Fiore Gattinara Riserva- Horrible. Down the drain it goes.

1971 Marchesi di Barolo Vecchio Maniero Barolo- Undrinkable. Right down the drain.

1974 Pelizzatti Valtellina Superiore Inferno- Barely drinkable.

1964 Minuto Barolo Riserva Speciale- Completely gone. Undrinkable.

1982 Cordero di Montezemolo Barolo Monfalletto- Absolutely stunning. The best of the bunch by far.

1964 Umberto Fiore Gattinara Riserva- The worst of the bunch. Felt like my tongue was melting off.

1967 Produttori del Barbaresco Riserva Speciale Cru Moccagatta- The most expensive (nearly $200!) and therefore the biggest disappointment. Barely drinkable.

My experience is a little bit different:

About 1/3 are singing. Still lively and tannic and no oxidized fruit.

About 1/3 are good. Major loss of color, some loss of fruit, but still distinctly good wine with the taste of old Nebbiolo.

About 1/3 are failures. Dead fruit and oxidized.

I have much more experience with 1964 (my birth year) than 1967, which might help the stats a bit as 1964 is a better vintage.

With all these things, sourcing matters a lot. The bulk of the old Nebbiolo I’ve tasted came from Rare Wine Co., which is very good at sourcing sound old wine.

how long have you given them to come around?

My hit rate is really high (like 80-90% probably of good or better) and from the same sources you mentioned (mostly chambers), but it can take anywhere between 3-8 hours sometimes for the wines to come around. especially in the 30-50year old range. i typically open them the morning of and take a small wiff/taste and decide if i just need to let it breathe in the bottle or put it in a decanter. most of the time they spend a couple hours in the bottle followed by a couple in the decanter before theyre ready

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This is a great point. I generally Audouze old Nebbiolo. I have definitely had bottles of old Nebbiolo that showed poorly after an hour or two blossom with 12+ hours of air.

If you pop ‘n’ pour, you are going to have a very low hit rate.

I don’t get to try the really older ones folks mention up thread, but I would say my general ‘hit rate’ for 20+ year old nebbiolo is also generally 30-40%. The rest of the time its drinkable or so, but nothing special.

Of course those times when its truly on…makes one forget the other bottles.

I agree with the slow-ox recommendation. I don’t have much experience with Nebbiolo (Piedmont or other) much over 30 years of age, because I tend to like them best before they get tertiary. I recently posted on a very good '97 Barolo, I would feel reasonably confident going back to the 80s, can’t see buying anything older, with possible rare exceptions. I would say my ‘hit rate’ on Barolo up to 30 years is about 90%.

Dan Kravitz

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exactly. mine would similarly be much lower if i judged it by the first 2-3 hours.

Old wine in general is a crapshoot! I say I have old friends and new friends, and they all bring something different to the table. And I don’t like everything about anybody or any wine. Embrace what it brings!

When I want to do an old nebbiolo, I stand it up weeks ahead, only to slow ox when day arrives. Decant to keep sediment away and serve with appropriate foods. It is a different approach than most other wines, especially younger ones. Sometimes epiphany, sometimes disappointment, but almost always a story that is worth enjoying. Mike

What counts as old?

Let’s say anything over 25-30 yo, so according to CT I’ve tasted 192 of those (vintages ranging from 1989 to 1947).

Of those:
Youthful: 4 (2,1%)
At its peak: 95 (49,5%)
Drinkable, but going downhill: 44 (22,9%)
Oxidized: 30 (15,6%)
Otherwise faulty: 10 (5,2%)
Corked: 9 (4,7%)

So, based on this sample I’d say it’s +50% chance you’ll get something great (with a good chance of something truly exceptional, if it’s a good vintage) and +70% chance to get something drinkable. On the other hand, about 1/4 of the wines not really drinkable.

If you concentrate only on truly exceptional vintages, your chances of getting solid stuff increase dramatically (most of my oxidized / past their peak wines were from lesser years and most of the “at their peak” wines were from great vintages).

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Without knowing the provenance of the bottles, hard to say. But producer is also important. Marchesi di Barolo is middle of the road at best - I wouldn’t buy the wines on release, so it shouldn’t be a shock that they don’t transform into something worth drinking 40 years later.

We had a Cappellano tasting a few years back with wines going back all the way to the 1940’s - most of these were sourced through Chambers Street, and all of the wines were at least interesting, with some being truly stellar.

This is my issue.

I think it is worth adding to the equation when you acquired the wines. I have had much worse luck with more recently acquired wines, those picked up over the last decade or so than older wines acquired previously, or purchased on release, which leads me to another question, what is old. I think I am becoming so.

In any event, my success rate is drifting down, leading me to recently pen this piece: Why I won't buy anymore old wine! - Simply Better Wines

I think my success rate with Nebbiolo older than 1982 is probably about 30%, with 40% of wines being crap, and the remainder fair to middling, which is probably just the way the wines were and not due to storage.

I have also become less forgiving of shitty old wines, and have found that some people are decidedly more necrophilic in their tastes than I am. I am perfectly capable of putting together a plate of kelp, mushrooms, dirt, and road debris seasoned with a soupcon of mildew, though I don’t, and I certainly am not excited about drinking something that tastes like that either.

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Just to clarify my original post- when I write the wine is “undrinkable”, I mean just that. Not that it is showing kind of poorly because it needs more aeration. These wines are truly completely dead and nasty. I have always kept them with the cork off for a couple of days just to double check, but I have never had one of these undrinkable wines become drinkable with exposure to air.

Well from your samples it sounds like you liked the youngest of them the most? So maybe try a few more in that age range?
Personally i don’t like wines in a too developed state. So if i was going to buy aged Nebbiolo wines myself i would search for late 90’s to start 00’s bottles.

love all of this.

I’ve pretty much given up on buying Nebb that is older than 82 and in reality, I’m extremely picky on anything older than 96 at this point. Part of that is my palate wanting more freshness and red fruit characteristics, but a lot of it goes into what you said about drinking tertiary flavors and people thinking a wine is awesome just because it’s alive or whatever.

I would be loathe to disagree with Greg, but I will add this.


Before I can give what I feel is meaningful advice, and before you throw in the towel on how they showed, it’s critical to know how you prepared the wines. I’ve had more times than I can count with old Nebbiolo that seems OTH in the AM on opening, a double decant for sediment then at dinner time they have woken up to something beautiful. I used to get too optimistic and think they all would, but many don’t. Over the years, I think I can tell which ones will wake up or not on opening, and will open up a backup if I have questions.

I do think buying from CSW is a wise choice for older nebbiolo. I do not mean to pick on your choices, but looking at those wines and vintages, I would expect 6 of them not to be good maybe never were. The one bummer as you said was the Produttori. 67 PdB wines, when they are on are still beautiful and I would argue at peak for the Rabaja, Paje, Pora. That said no good old wines, just bottles. I’d agree with Greg on the worsening provenance of recent purchases. I suspect there are only so many terrific old cellars of Piemontese wines and that many of those sources are drying up and when there is still demand, the less desirable cellars become the best available ones.

I have stopped buying pre '89 Piedmont wines with the exception of '82 and '78, and then only producers I really like and that I expect to show well. I can’t afford to buy G. Conterno, Giacosa, Cappellano from that era anymore, so pickings are pretty slim on producers that go that long.
Fiorina makes age worthy, sturdy, structured wines and I think those were reasonable ones to buy older if you feel the need. I would also rec Cavallotto and PdB can still be pretty solid from that time frame, but it all depends on bottle condition. If I were to look form that era those are the producers I would seek out. In my anecdotal experience, I probably have the highest hit rate with older Cavallotto (aside from Cappellano which exclude form the conversation is it has gone bonkers of late and I don’t count as a reasonable option anymore). PdB would be up there in my top 3 for 40+ old from great vintages. That said from that era, I am probably batting, even with what I would think are well chosen bottles have somewhere between a 35-40% outstanding wine hit rate with another 30-35% enjoyable but not what I would seek out ( with the caveat that I am more necro tolerant than Greg) , and the remainder not good at all. Even the best 74s are fading some rapidly, 71s are holding but on the back slope with very few exceptions. 64 and 67 can still be very good but most are tired. 78 is one vintage where some wines are still youthful. Again producer matters. But it’s also important to think of what were are talking about. '71s are 50 years old. Looking in context, how many Bordeaux, Burgs, Rhone, (maybe not Rioja) from that same era would drink well? I would argue a much lower percentage unless you are talking the ne plus ultra of those regions from excellent vintages. Of the ones that might, they might be in the mortgage region of cost.

I wouldn’t give up on your search, and I think we all have this hope to find the combination of complexity that only comes with age and value in nebbiolo, but I think that I think it’s optimistic to think that one can find that many great wine experiences from a 40+ year old bottle at all, even harder for a bargain. That said, some are out there, and with the right producer and vintage, you can get lucky.

Hope that helps.

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I think thats totally fair. I realized this kind of recently too. while I will say ive enjoyed the older Nebbs I’ve had and would call them very drinkable, I just enjoy the wines slightly younger more.

My hit rate is similar, even on “lesser” wines.

How old is old? Post-2000 my failure rate is less than 2% - about what I expect.
1996-2000 it’s about 10% - and when dead it’s dead. Undrinkable after 5 hours, 24 or 48.
Pre-1996 it’s more like 20%, with another 10% past/way past prime but not obviously damaged. I.e. old.

All purchased after 2012, data from Cellar Tracker.

Honestly I’ve never had a pre-1978 (Piedmont Nebbiolo) bottle that really excited me. Some sound bottles but the fully tertiary, fading away profile is not one I love. Doesn’t mean I won’t drink your bottles but I won’t buy any more. 1978-1996 is a very wide range but I won’t likely buy more than a few more given unreliability and pricing on decent producers. I have 9 more from that period and hope for more smiles than frowns.

Wines, like people, have expiration dates. It’s not fair to run a relay with a geriatric and compare them to someone in a college track team.
Sometimes we age with grace, sometimes not so much, but you need to be forgiving when dealing with older anything: persons, houses, cars, …and wines.