In the heart of northwestern Italy's Piedmont region lies the Langhe, a hilly zone southeast of the industrial city of Turin. In many ways it seems removed from the rest of Italy. Architecturally, for example, there's little of the "farmhouse" style associated with Tuscany, but rather Baroque churches and crenellated hilltop fortifications. Instead of the sunny, Mediterranean feel of Umbria and points south, one finds here an almost melancholy landscape of rolling hills carpeted with everything from fruit trees to vines, often napped in mist.   More

In the heart of northwestern Italy's Piedmont region lies the Langhe, a hilly zone southeast of the industrial city of Turin. In many ways it seems removed from the rest of Italy. Architecturally, for example, there's little of the "farmhouse" style associated with Tuscany, but rather Baroque churches and crenellated hilltop fortifications. Instead of the sunny, Mediterranean feel of Umbria and points south, one finds here an almost melancholy landscape of rolling hills carpeted with everything from fruit trees to vines, often napped in mist.

As in Burgundy, vineyard ownership here is broken up among hundreds of different individuals and families, and different growing sites are known to have their own specific attributes which are then expressed in the resulting wines. Barolo and Barbaresco are the "king" and "queen" of the region and are named from their respective zones near the prosperous town of Alba. Made from the Nebbiolo grape, these wines at their best take years, even decades, to mature, but are rivaled only by the greatest Burgundies in their ineffable, transcendent beauty.

For the past couple of decades there has been a "culture war" of sorts fought over the "true" character of Barolo and Barbaresco. Starting in the late '80s, a division has emerged between those considered "traditionalists" and their "modernist" counterparts. The former are best exemplified by Bruno Giacosa, the Giacomo Conterno winery, and the late Bartolo Mascarello; the latter camp includes Elio Altare, Domenico Clerico, Giorgio Rivetti, and others. Regardless of the philosophical school, both sides can boast meticulous viticulture resulting in the finest raw material. It is only when that fruit arrives at the winery that the fierce disagreements emerge, with "old school" producers employing long fermentations and favoring large old casks for pre-bottling aging; their "modernist" counterparts go for very rapid ferments and heartily embrace new-every-vintage, small French oak barriques.

As delicious and undeniably high quality as the contemporary take on these wines can be, one cannot help but wonder if they have failed to capture the soul of Barolo (or Barbaresco). We're apparently not the only ones to voice this fear, as many winemakers who initially ventured farthest out to the cutting edge are the very ones now reining things, junking their computer-controlled roto-fermenters and scaling back the percentage of high-toast French oak in the cellar.   Less