The fact of the matter is that Barbera was the grape of Piedmont at the time and, gauging from Odart, possibly the grape of Italy.

First of all, we need to get something straight.

There was no 19^th-century enologist named Louis Oudart. And Piedmont statesman and winemaker Camillo Cavour (one of the architects of Italian independence) never summoned the imaginary Louis Oudart to come to the Langhe Hills from France so that he could teach the Piedmontese to make wine.

It’s not clear where this nugget originated but it has sadly propagated itself throughout the

literature devoted to Barolo — on both sides of the Atlantic.

I’ve pored through ALL of Cavour’s collected letters at the Columbia University research library. And while there are countless references to wine, the sale and purchase of wine, gifts of wine, comparisons of French and Piedmontese wine, there is no mention — whatsoever — of Louis Oudart.

There was however a famous 19^th-century French botanist and expert winemaker named Alexandre-Pierre Odart (sometimes spelled erroneously as Oudart, with a hypercorrective “u”) who was keenly interested in Italian grape varieties and in Italian wines, especially Piedmontese wines. He was the author, among other landmark titles like his Manual of Enology, of Universal Ampelography, revised and reprinted at least 14 time during the 1800s.

In this groundbreaking ampelographic masterwork, he has high praise for the “magnificent work” of his contemporary, Italian botanist and ampelographer Giorgio Gallesio.

In my last post for this series, I translated  Gallesio’s entry on Barbera, a text widely referenced throughout the second half of the century as the definitive description of the variety.

Odart translates Gallesio’s entry almost in its entirety. But this is understandable considering his veneration for Barbera. He is so impressed with Barbera that he almost betrays the legendary viticultural pride of the French people:

“Barbera Vera [True Barbera] and Barbera d’Asti has all the necessary elements found in a good quality wine… especially for those who consider color as a desired quality. The wine that it produces is full bodied, with good flavor and alcohol. Recognized for its productivity, it can be helpful in many cases, [for example] in [challenging] vintages it can deliver 13 percent alcohol [levels]… Some place so much faith in this grape that one might conclude that the wines of Italy and Spain [sic] are better than the wines of Champagne and Bourgogne. But this this is an unsustainable proposition… excusable [if it were put forth] by a professor of physics but not by someone who has tasted the wines I mention above. Nonetheless, the value of this variety has been consecrated by the opinion of Count Gallesio”

Odart devotes nearly three of the work’s more than 600 pages to Barbera. Nebbiolo, on the other hand, get a barely cursory mention (Odart confuses Nebbiolo with Freisa and he is chiefly interested “Nebbiolo Bianco” or “White Nebbiolo,” which he considers a relative of Trebbiano; but that’s a whole other can of worms).

The fact of the matter is that Barbera was the grape of Piedmont at the time and, gauging from Odart, possibly the grape of Italy.

Why was Odart so interested in Barbera and why was it so appealing to him? It’s highly possible that he considered Barbera an antidote to the phylloxera scourge that decimated the vineyards of France during his lifetime.

A possible antidote, that is, if you’re a physics professor…

I’ll have a lot more to share and say about Gallesio and Odart in my next post.

Thanks for being here.

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