An encounter with Paolo Baracchino Excellent wine critic

“I hate wood. I hate the overloading feeling of wood, which must be of help in the blend and not hide any scent”, says Paolo Baracchino, a well-known professional lawyer and an elegant and well known Fine Wine Critic for passion.

His flair is intense when he speaks of wine. It is a whole world of aromas, of flavours, of emotions he describes and holds in his heart and soul. His knowledge is profound when he expresses all these sensations. It is pure love.

His passion began in 1998 when he attended a sommelier course of the AIS (Italian Sommelier Association). In 2000, he became a sommelier, conducting tastings both in Italy and abroad.

He defines himself as a “free passionate taster”.

He is a lawyer and tasting member of the Grand Jury Européen, based in Luxembourg, founded in 1996 by François Mauss. This Jury comprises a minimum of twelve permanent members, from at least six countries of the European Community and Switzerland; they organize blind tastings at least 68 different wines in two or three-hour daily sessions. They aim to provide an alternative classification of wines.

He is a member of the “Les enfants du Champagne” Association, whose sommeliers meet three or four times a year to taste themed champagnes.

As a journalist, he writes on well-known food and wine magazines.

We meet in his personal and special wunderkammer, a room of wonders where he collects Tuscan, Piedmonts, Bordeaux, Champagne and Porto wines.

I am honoured he received me in such room since very few have had the honour of entering this hidden place, located in the centre of Florence, between the Arno and Palazzo Vecchio.

– “Your private wine cellar is a sort of “wine library “, I tell him,” Do you agree with my free interpretation?”

He replies, “It encloses what I particularly adore! I come here and choose the wine I want to drink because I like to savour the flavours.

The fundamental characteristics of the wine are sweetness and softness, given by sugar; acidity and hardness; sapidity because of the presence of mineral salts; bitterness, produced by polyphenols and tannins.

Important factors are also tactile and retronasal sensations, such as its persistence.

I love delicate flavours, balance, which is very relevant, elegance, femininity, the right vigour, and pleasantness. Pleasantness that lingers in your mouth and the way you feel it.

I like all this! I love to taste wines of all over the world, champagne, white wine. It is the desire to find out what is in a glass, to discover the wines, taste them, and appreciate them”.

– “What are the qualities a wine expert must have?”

“He must have the ability to understand what’s in a bottle, without looking at the label first.

I am blessed to have a good, very sensitive tongue, essential for a sommelier. I have a broad olfactory memory, too.

The scents endure in my mind with intensity. They are part of my tasting such as the scent of the watermelon, the peel of the white melon, the chestnuts, the bales, glue, the almond milk, rice, which reminds me of the smell of stiff on the pieces of fabric my parents sold in their shop, and the jujube of the German Riesling.

As Proust wrote:

“…Quando di un passato lontano non resta più nulla… più fragili ma più vividi, più immateriali, più persistenti, più fedeli, l’odore e il sapore rimangono ancora a lungo, come anime, a ricordare, ad attendere, a sperare…a sorreggere senza piegare, sulla loro stilla quasi impalpabile, l’immenso edificio del ricordo“.

“[…] when nothing subsists of an old past, […] frailer but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, smell and taste still remain for a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping […], bearing without giving way, on their almost impalpable droplet, the immense edifice of memory”. Swann’s Way,  Part 1 -Combray

NICOLETTA ARBUSTI