Opened this up yesterday. Not exactly sure why I purchased it. I get a lot of earthiness, leather, cedar, mushrooms. I don’t have any experience with nebbiolo, so I’m wondering if this is the flavor profile of an old Borolo or if the bottle went bad? It didn’t go well with the pasta/red sauce but my wife suggested a pairing with strong cheese.
Just wondering and need input from those who know.
Except maybe for the cedar, that sounds like a fairly typical nebbiolo with some age. Rosehips is another common element.
Silvio Grasso used a fair deal of new oak in those days, which can add to nebbiolo’s own tannins. I wasn’t keen on Grasso’s '99 Bricco Luciana on release, and I opened a 96 Bricco Luciana vineyard some years back that was pretty coarse and charmless, even allowing for the fact that 96 was a tannic year that needed a lot of time.
Guess it’s time to try one of the '99s I bought by mistake (a friend misunderstood me when we placed a joint order).
I don’t think nebbiolo matches well with really red, tomato-dominated sauces. I find those wines work better with meat sauces, reductions, mushroom-heavy sauces – something that may have some tomato in the background but is darker. Grilled meats are a good fit, too, because of the grape’s tannins. I don’t think strong cheese helps any red wine.