Saturday night TNs: '85 Dominus & '98 Bartolo Mascarello

Just came back from a great dinner at a local BYOB celebrating my older daughter’s 19th birthday. This place focuses on local produce, and I normally bring Bordeaux or Burgundy here, but my wife wanted an Italian red, so we ended up with two pretty disparate wines:

The 1998 Bartolo Mascarello Barolo was quite nice; I’m sitting here with a last glass as I type this, the color still a darker red than I would have expected, not quite translucent at it’s core, but with lightening around the rim. Still a very young nose with mentholated cherries and underbrush - I’ve read TNs in the past that described this wine as mature and drinking well, so I’m not sure if I just like my Barolo with a lot more development in terms of it’s overall profile, but IMO this wine is just starting to enter early drinkability. Sweet, crisp fruit on the palate with a moderate backlash of tannin on the finish - you don’t feel this on your enamel like a really tannic Piemonte red (I had the '98 Roagna Barbaresco Paje a week or so ago, and that can still peel the enamel from your teeth ), but given it’s lack of secondary development, the wine can easily rest another 5 or so years before you pull a cork (and if you only have a couple, I strongly recommend deferring your gratification).

Back in a few, as they are going to serve the Black Forest birthday cake!

Where’s the note on the '85 Dominus??

Sorry, Todd, but the birthday cake was beckoning -

At any rate, the 1985 Dominus ended up being a major surprise - when I opened it, the cork basically disintegrated on me, but the wine seemed sound so I figured I’d give it a shot (I did bring another bottle as a back-up to the restaurant just in case). As an aside, I opened both wines at around 3:00 p.m., so about three and a half hours prior to serving, but I did not decant the wines.

Sitting here with a glass, this wine is darker at it’s core than the Mascarello, with minimal lightening around the rim. The nose is absolutely stellar - iron, blood, blackberry fruit and earth. Really coats the palate, with not a hard edge to be found mid-palate, and just a touch of acidic edginess on the finish. I have read in the past that Mouiex did not really like the early vintages of Dominus - I seem to recall that he did not feel the wine really hit it’s stride until '89 or '90. With all due respect to that great winemaker, this is about as good as it gets with a 25 year old cabernet, at least from my perspective. Delicious, and off this bottle, I see no reason why well-stored examples couldn’t drink well for another 5 or 10 years

On it’s own, I actually preferred this wine to the Mascarello (a major surprise given my strong preference for nebbiolo), but with my mushroom ravioli entree, the Mascarello really hit it’s stride. Still, both wines were very enjoyable tonight.

Thanks, Bob - sorry about the birthday cakus interruptus, but I’m a big fan of Dominus, and the '83 I had was just stellar, so I was curious about your '85. It appears to have disappointed neither of us!

Happy Birthday for your daughter, Bobulus. Where did you dine?

Alex

Sovana Bistro down in Unionville. BTW, Alex, I had dinner Thursday night at Jasper in Downingtown and it was very nice (although they don’t have enough stemware to accomodate wine geek-style tastings). The food was much better this time than my initial visit, so maybe the chef has figured out what he is trying to do. At any rate, one more “doable destination” in the local BYOB population.