2012 Bartolo Mascarello Barolo- Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo (9/16/2017)
Off-vintage? This is magnificent. Complex aromas combining fruit (cherries and plums), fresh mint, roses, and a dark and savoury character. Beautiful sweetness of fruit on the palate: it’s both light and powerful. Fine-grained tannins, very long and expressive. However this is not a wine which is striking by the sum of its parts but by its harmony. It is already a complex and utterly beguiling wine.
For me, this is a wine to use as a benchmark to decipher the region. I understand that Barolo comes in many expressions and that there are distinct terroirs throughout the region. This is simply great wine.
Thierry, thanks for opening this wine. As you say, it was absolutely brilliant, as you describe.
It reminded me of the 2012 Rinaldi Tre Tine I opened last year. I think vintage is often overemphasised. There is huge hype around the 2013 Mascarello (see the thread on this page), while some people might describe 2012 as a lesser vintage. The top producers like Mascarello and Rinaldi however rarely IMO miss with their top wines. This bottle was further proof of that.
For the record I had both an '11 Bartolo Barolo and the '11 G. Rinaldi Brunate last Friday. Both were stunning and yet so different. Despite the heat of the vintage the Bartolo was all elegance and finesse. Conversely the Rinaldi was much more “beefier” if you will without being too big or overripe. Both were positively stunning but for my palate the elegance of the Bartolo won out.
I’ve been lucky to be able to taste this twice, and both times it was fantastic. Not a great vintage for them, but certainly a very good one. 2012 is strange like that, I feel that 4 - 5 producers made very good wines, but then the quality drops off quickly after that.
As Howard notes above the Rinaldi Tre Tine and the Mascarello suggest that 2012 might a very good to outstanding vintage for the more traditionalist producer. Both wines have power and great harmony. In the end, it is a matter of personal taste but less might be more.
Howard actually wrote about the Rinaldi Brunate and I was going to suggest to compare Bartolo to Rinaldi Tre Tine, if one wants a comparison of two wines in a similar style (in a broad sense): Tre Tine is always more delicate than the Brunate. It would indeed be interesting to taste them blind side by side…