If Anders was coming around for dinner I would have treated this differently, but he wasn’t so I gave it an 8 hour decant.
1974 Cordero di Montezemolo Barolo Monfalletto- Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo (10/24/2016)
This particular bottle was in splendid condition. It poured out possessing a ruby jewel like glisten. There were complex aromatics of chestnut, cardamom, curry leaf, cranberry and earth. It had great presence and power in the mouth, with a core of crunchy red fruit and a base of earthy structure. The finish was crisp, detailed and extremely long.
I finished off a bottle of Clouet Rose last night that had been opened for 24 hrs without a suitable closure and it was better for the ‘breathing’. Wonder how that might be received?
Thanks for the nice note, Jeremy! Cordero di Montezemolo seems to be a producer for long-lasting Barolo…
As it happens, I detected an almost forgotten bottle from this producer, a 1976, in a dark corner of the cellar two weeks ago… What amazed me the most was the dense, healthy colour of this wine. Copious quantities of iodine, ginger, and dried herbs on the nose. Delicious notes of anise, caraway, and exotic spices on the palate, with a hint of sour cherry and leather. The acidity was still robust, and the impressively lingering finish dry and spicy. This wine is likely to offer beautiful drinking for another few decades. Nice surprise!
The old Cordero di Montezemolos seem to have held up very well, and there have been a lot of them on the market in the last several years. There have been a number of other postings on them:
In recent decades, they have gone to a very modern style, with very short maceration times (just 4-5 days for the Monfalletto now) and the Barolos are partly or entirely aged in barriques, according to the winery website.
According to the winery website, the Monfalletto is a blend from various vineyards. The current label puts Monfalletto in quotes. Perhaps that’s to comply with the new rules on cru designations – just speculation.
The name of the family who owns the winery is Cordero di Montezemolo. The name of the winery is Azienda Agricola Monfalletto. Monfalletto (“Mount of the Falletti family”, the latter related to the Cordero di Montezemolo family through marriage), where the winery is located, is in turn another name for a part of the MGA zone known as Gattera, located to the northeast of the village of Annunziata in La Morra. The Monfalletto hill is famous not only for its wine but also for the majestic cedar tree planted on its top. See here.
As John mentioned, the Barolo Monfalletto is nowadays a blend from several vineyards. However, according to A Wine Atlas of the Langhe (Slow Food Editore 2002), it was in the not so distant past made from the Gattera/Monfalletto vineyard since the book lists the wine as one of those stemming from that zone (along with the Gatteras of Bovio, Fratelli Revello, and Mauro Veglio). It might therefore well be that the 1974 that Jeremy enjoyed stems from the Gattera/Monfalletto cru.
According to the book I mentioned, the winery had a very strong reputation back then, when Paolo Cordero di Montezemolo, portrayed in the book as one of “the greats of Barolo”, was still alive. At a later stage, they turned “modernist” but never really made it, as far as I know, into the limelight within that group. With hindsight, it would probably have been better for them to stay “traditionalist” so that today, they could point, with less reservation, to their relatively long and proud history as makers of traditional Barolo of the highest caliber.
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