NOSE: tons of VA; fumey; baked/roasted red fruits; unpleasant; touch of something leathery and petrichor. Bad.
BODY: garnet color of medium-light to medium depth with bricking throughout; medium to medium-full bodied; Diam 5 cork.
TASTE: very tannic; adequate acidity; extremely muted/dead on the palate, leading me to wonder if this has TBA going on. This got recorked and put back in the fridge — I checked-in on it periodically over the following week, and it never changed; ultimately, it was a drain dump. Terrible bottle. NR (flawed)
Brian, sorry you got a hold of a bad bottle. I’ve had many of that bottling over the years and all of them have been energetic and pleasurable, not to mention a fine surprise from Giorgio.
Sounds like one I had from the early 2000s (a 2004?) circa 2009-- VA and alcohol and zero charm. Just a mess. Greg dal Piaz, who organized that tasting, thought it was typical, not an off bottle. Haven’t gone near one since.
Can’t remember if I’ve had a single good Nebbiolo from La Spinetta. To me, all of them have been super-modern, excessively oaky and unbalanced, showing too much toasty wood, a bit too ripe fruit and often all too little acidity. Some of them have managed to show quite decent tannic structure for modernist Nebbiolo wines, but that has never really been enough to redeem the wines. I guess the hot 2009 vintage only exacerbates the aforementioned characteristics.
My only purchase from this producer is listed below, and I have 3 bottles left. My next thought is to pop and pour, serve immediately to 6+ people that can drink it within 30 minutes. Thoughts?
2005 La Spinetta (Rivetti) Barbaresco Vürsù Vigneto Valeirano
8/19/2018 - I WROTE: (Edit)92 Points
3 years ago and a 3 hour decant, and this was a big modern beast of a wine. 1 year ago and a 2 hour decant left this wine in a fragile oxidized state.
Today, a splash decant and served at cellar temperature. This wine had flashy intriguing red fruit along with graceful tannin. A small pour about an hour later from the decanter, and I found this wine to be considerably oxidized.
To me, this was the best wine at the tasting after it was splash decanted, and almost worthless an hour later.
I’ve only had the base Barbera for their wines from Piedmont but we did a tasting last week at the Casanova winery and really enjoyed their single label Sangiovese and Chianti. Quite a fun visit as well.