Landscape, Geology, Microclimate

On the page Reading the lanscape, I have already explained how important it is to master the little-known, and indeed very simple art of reading the landscape.

Now it is time to move from theory to practice and to explain through a few examples how the landscape can tell us many things that are often not easy to understand in books (and if you are curious, take a look at the Territory chapter in the Barolo section as well).

To do that, let us start again from the two panoramic images used in the previous pages and, instead of dwelling on the context, try to analyze the profile of the hills. In the first image, which covers most of the municipality of Barbaresco and the MGAs of Neive near the Tanaro River, it appears particularly gentle and rounded, as is typical of the Marne di Sant’Agata Fossili and of soils with a greater presence of silt and clay.

In the second image, you can immediately see how the hillsides are much steeper and in some cases also deeply eroded. This is particularly clear if you rotate the image 180 degrees in the direction of Cappelletto and the southern and higher end of the appellation. Again, the explanation is linked to geology, and in particular to the Lequio Formation, which due to the greater presence of sand within it is precisely more erodible than the Sant’Agata Fossil Marls.

The third image tells us about soils. As you may recall, on the A bit of geologypage we introduced the fundamental distinction between young soils and evolved soils. The former, typical of steeper slopes, are light in color, while the latter, typical of gentler slopes, are generally reddish in color. And what you see on the screen is the clearest demonstration of this.

The third image, again rotated 180 degrees in the direction of Cappelletto, also tells us about the cooler microclimate that characterizes the southern part of the appellation, evidenced by the greater presence of forests. Influencing the microclimate is undoubtedly the higher elevation, but also and above all the shape of the hills and the valley along which the boundary of the appellation runs (in red in the images). A long and narrow valley, shown even more clearly in the fourth image, which descends from the south to the north channeling cool winds from the Alta Langa.

In more general terms, the Barbaresco area, when compared to the Barolo area, is on average less rainy and slightly early in all phenological stages of the vine, including harvest.

Another feature you may have already noticed are the deep gullies that mark the landscape of this part of the appellation, the deepest and most spectacular of which is known as the Rocche dei Sette Fratelli. Created over the millennia as a result of erosion by surface and groundwater, these “rocche” also bear witness to the particular structure of the Lequio Formation, characterized by layers of gray marl and others of cemented sand, also known locally as Pietra di Langa (fifth image).

The “rocche” that develops to the north along the Tanaro valley are of a different type, since the layers that can be seen in the last image are an expression of the laminated Sant’Agata Fossil Marls. The origin is also different: unlike the Rocche dei Sette Fratelli, it is mainly due to the erosive action of the Tanaro River.

In conclusion, a note for non-Italian-speaking readers: the word “rocche” is in strictly local usage and cannot be translated into English, except by the words cliff, ravine or gully, which would make it lose its more romantic and ancestral side.