Piero Busso Barbaresco San Stunet 2015 : 17,5/20 - 3/8/2021
Very nice nose (strawberry, flowers, spices, orange zest, cinchona, …) and a palate with high quality powdery tannins.
Piero Busso Barbaresco Mondino 2016 : 16,5/20 - 7/5/2021
Notes of pomegranate and cinchona, powdery tannins. I find the volatile very pronounced (for shades of chard apple). The wine will clarify after a few minutes (it seems fragile to me, however).
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While I’ve been a big fan of 2016 Barolo/Barbaresco, I found Busso Mondino 2015 to be better than 2016. While 2015 definitely feels quite ripe, as one would expect given the vintage, it was still very stern, savory and tough wine with tons of promise. 2016, however, was just surprisingly light, delicate and underwhelming in style.
Haven’t had the 2015 San Stunet, but the 2013 was very lovely. A bit on the ripe and sweeter side of things, but with very tightly-knit structure and brimming with cellaring potential.
We also had an elegant Salicutti Rosso di Montalcino 2018 (17/20) and a powerful promising Cavalotto Barolo Bricco Boschis 2015 (18/20).
Not convinced by a dark/rough Conterno-Fantino Barolo Sori Ginestra Barolo 2005 (15,5/50, nearly thought it was a spanish Toro or a sagrantino, with very harsch tannins).
I can’t remember ever having problems with Nebbiolo tannins, no matter how rough, hard or harsh they get. However, I have lots of problems with Conterno-Fantino wines. Very spoofy, oaky and overdone wines with no finesse. When we visited the producer, they wanted to show how wonderfully their wines evolve and they dug up a 1998 Vigna del Gris. It turned out to be more or less as oaky and clumsy as the young wines we were tasting (2011s at the time).
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The guy who brought the wine however told the group that it was a traditional style.
Oaky, no finesse, overdone … fit.
Is it a medium style, like Elio Altare ?
Rough like a Marquis d’Angerville’s Volnay, lacking elegance, can be …
And I am not a fan of Voerzio or Sandrone (modern oaky style), even with time.
No, definitely not. Conterno-Fantino is as modernist as they come. When I visited the place in 2015, they had probably 4 or 5 small botti casks in their cellar, otherwise it was just hundreds of barriques, mostly new. The wines are vinified quite quickly in rotofermenters with about of week of maceration and then into barriques they go.
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