Great! I’ll talk to Jay and if a few other Beserkers chime in, I’ll take the lead in organizing this.
Do you vote for BYOB to share, or having me provide the vertical?
George- I can be convinced
I dunno…I’m still working this shit out… ![[drinkers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/82916bed5ad74ac8470bc04089d9758b0c80c9fa.gif "drinkers"){kind=small}
+1 . Just need time to source the swill. All I have is 99 vintage and the last was a huge no-go.
I have no Germano Angelo but I have Barolo from '96 to '05
If I’m free, I’d be happy to donate something from 1974 to 1982.
Including myself, we are at 7 for the nebbiolo diner in January, plus our fearless leader Todd, Kenny, Eric and Seo… Anyone else care to join in? Looks like we’ll go the individual contribution route rather than a Germano vertical. I’ll pitch in some 05, 06 Vigna Rue and MAYBE a 1965 Germano too! (Though I was told not to expect too much as these weren’t exactly stored in pristine conditions.)
please post or PM me if interested in joining in at our yet to be determined location!
possible dates include Monday, January 10 or Thursday Jan 13th…
Time to move this event, in a new thread, to the Offline forum
Speaking to the traditional style Barolo and Barbaresco, I have found that the goodones are tannic young, and remain tannic when mature, at least tannic in the relative sense, compared to most other wines of the world. Yes, the tannins will mellow out somewhat, but they will always be there, ready to make their presence known, and this is a good thing. When you have a mature Barolo with the right food, a piece of meat with some fat on it, a magical thing happens. The oils from the meat ameliorate the tannin in the wine, bringing out the fruit, yet the wine retains it’s lean and lithe structure, and grippy finish. That is one of the things that makes Barolo and Barbaresco so unique and wonderful.
As for complexity, the wine will mature over the years and gain secondary characteristics that are not there in it’s youth, and the fruit will change from black raspberry and black cherry, to red raspberry and red cherry and then some orange and tangerine when perfectly mature. (Some wines start out in the red fruit range). Burning leaves, incense, tobacco and licorice are things I love to find in an aged B&B, rarely found in young ones. dc.
I’m with you in spirit,Dave…but tannins do resolve in oooold Nebbiolo…had the 61 Monfortino several times in the past few years,and one would be hard put to distinguish it from a mature,spiced burgundy.Lovely,ethereal stuff.
Bill,
You are a very lucky man, living large I see. FWIW, I have had the 61 twice - in a restaurant in New Jersey in 1987 and a few years ago at a Monfortino vertical put on by Greg Dal Piaz, at his crib in Manhattan. I always told people that the 61 Monfortino was probably the greatest Barolo I had ever tasted, until the night of Greg’s vertical, when the 58 Monfortino edged it out! :~) (We also had the 55 and 71 Monfortinos that night, and the 61 “normale”, which was stunning, and had very little if any noticeable tannin)
So I am forever in Greg’s debt. I would give him my first born if I had any kids. :~)
dc.
Damn that bottle was good! I have one more 58 from that lot. Probably time to get drinking it. Which could be arranged. No more 55 or 71 laying about but putting it in a line-up with say, the 61, 64 and another bottle from each of those vintages could make for fun times.
As far as when Barolo is best, that’s as much producer based as vintage based and without an answer, though i were say that almost all wines from 74,78, 79, 82, 85, 88 and 90 are at peak right now. That can give you an idea of the ageing curve of this wine. The seem to hit their stride in their early 20’s and last another 20 years or so at or close to peak. Wines from the 60s and earlier were made differently so they have had a different ageing curve.
There is no doubt that the wines get better with age. They evolve becoming more complex aromatically and as the tannins soften the become both more intensely flavored as well as down right silky. There are wines, such as the Burlottos from 95 and 96 that are/have been on offer from Chambers street that mature earlier and allow one to experience the wonders of Barolo at a very fair price. That’s another tasting worth doing, a Burlotto vertical.
I think one of truths behind the original poster’s comment is that Nebbiolo is one of the wines that consistently shuts down. For a period of time after release and before maturity Barolo is indeed generic. Hard, slightly vinous, tannic and boring. Catch several wines in this period and I can see how one might think that is what Barolo become. In 1994 i put together a 1982 horizontal tasting and encountered just that. I had bought the bottles on release and had been waiting patiently for this big day and let me tell you I was disappointed, and my friends who had joined me were incredulous. This is the Barolo that you love so much, they asked! We tasted those wines together again in 2004. At that tasting they were able to answer that question.
And individual bottles of Nebbiolo can have oxidation curves which are bizarre, counter-intuitive, and simply backwards [or upside down] from what they ought to be - as though the oxidation [or anti-oxidation] which you are witnessing shouldn’t even be bio-chemically possible.
For instance, I can remember a bottle of Gaja which had some lovely lilac/rose-petal notes at about the 4-hour mark on Day One, but which shut down as hard as nails on Day Two and Day Three, as though it had never even been opened at all.