Produttori Rabaja Vertical 1989-2008

WINE TALK
1

Last night tasted thru a vertical of Produttori Rabaja. This tends to be one of the most popular of the Riservas. The site is apparently warmer than many of the other vineyards, achieving better ripeness. The wines tend to be ripe, without the green tones in some of the other cuvees, a little less acid than some, and with age somewhat more of a tendency to take on a prominent note of Rose. They are nicely balanced and although full, not Barolo-like (as opposed to montestefano). According to Aldo Vaca, also not expected to be super long agers (again not Barolo-like), being perhaps best up till 10 or so years of age (this one surprises me a bit, as I had thought of them as longer agers).

wines were opened 1-2 hours before tasting, not decanted.


2008–Fairly sweet, a little fleshy, but with very good acid/tannin structure. ripe red cherries, rose, tea leaf. Fairly long finish with some finishing heat. Warm vintage wine seemingly without some of the downsides found in some wines from hot vintages.

2007–Softer wine than 2008, slight bitterness to the red cherries, but this fades. Still some finishing heat. Nice high toned warmer vintage wine, pretty enjoyable now. Hasn’t yet developed the typical nebbiolo nose.

2005–Cooler wine, less powerful but beautifully balanced with everything you would want in a barbaresco. Somewhat darker cherry fruit. Some tar now on the nose, no overt alcohol. Actually, this is just wonderful right now (I’ve been drinking a number of the 2005’s actually, and they are in a great spot).

2004–Fairly sweet, higher toned red fruits, dried cherry, some roses, a little fleshiness. some folks really liked this wine. I wanted a little more stuff in the lower register.

2001–Wow. a different wine than any of the others so far. Darker, but not necessarily denser or heavier. Much more in the dark fruits, lower register. the cherries are almost black cherries. Loved this wine, and it seems in a great spot. Not a lot of secondary character, but I don’t also see it getting lots better.

1999–Unfortunately carmelized/maderized heat damaged bottle.

1996–Beautiful deep, dark wine, yet great balance and not at all heavy or overly tannic. Plenty of secondary character, and perhaps the feeling that more time will not help but may actually detract.

1990–A fair amount of reduction (cork was very tight and hard to extract), which eventually blew off, and went away promptly with copper. Mature, dark wine from warm vintage, but no heat or roasted character. again great balance, plenty of secondary character, and very enjoyable. but seems to be fading and doesn’t have the fresh energy of something like the 2001.

1989–again, some reduction which mostly blows off. Roses and slightly stinky asphalt, a substantial wine, but more red fruit character than 1990. Much more old wine character than previous. A really nice experience, but again I think it is probably on the downward slope and don’t see any reason to hold it longer.


This was a very instructive tasting for me, with a couple of lessons. Number one, Rabaja is not a Barolo. I had a vision of it as more of a bigger, more tannic wine than it is. And number two, It’s sweet spot age-wise seems to be in the up to 10-12 year range, and this actually may be before it develops lots of secondary character. This was also a surprise to me as I was again thinking more along Barolo aging lines. (I was surprised enough that I went back and reviewed Tanzer’s video of Aldo describing each riserva vineyard and their characteristics, and this is pretty much exactly what he says.)

2

Great notes, love Produttori and Rabaja, so it’s a great combo.

Interesting stuff about the 10-12 years drinking peak. I haven’t had nearly enough older vintages to have any strong opinion, but like you, I would have guessed these would need or benefit from more cellar time.

I did have a 1970 Produttori Rabaja two years ago that I thought was sublime, FWIW.

3

Pat–yeah the age thing may elicit some disagreement, and I’m sure that there are some wonderful older wines out there, but the ones we tasted were clearly aging nicely, but seeming to be fading a bit, and most everyone preferred the slightly younger fresher wines. I’m one that tends to prefer to let my Barolos and red burgs age, but I’m changing my mind a bit on at least the Produttori’s. Montestefano, Montefico, and Paje, and maybe Asili I think tend to age better than the Rabaja.

4

Aldo likes to drink his wines young, per his own admission. I think it is a matter of personal taste, but I’ve had several of the Riservas from 71 and 78 (admittedly very strong vintages) recently and they were consistently outstanding and not tired (aside from a couple shot bottles-that were dead and so different form the rest of them that I would think it bottle variation moreso than typical aging). To each his own. Great tasting opportunity you all had. Cool stuff and thanks!

5

John,

Really good stuff. Looks like it’s time to test drive the 01.

Thanks,
Doug

6

Antonio also likes his Produttori on the younger side - I tend to disagree, but I also rarely come across a young bottle that is so shut down as to be a waste of time, so I think the Produttori line has a pretty wide drinking window.

Too bad about that '99, John - I haven’t touched any of mine yet, but I am looking forward to pulling a cork on one in the near future. Too bad you didn’t include a 2000 - I actually think that wine is drinking better than the 2001 at this moment, although the 2001 is clearly a better long-term wine.

7

Nice thread, and timely, given that I just bought the 2008 line-up of Barbarescos made by Produttori, sort of on a whim. Looking forward to reintroducing myself.

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Todd–I was a little surprised to have the impressions that I did. I’m someone who is still sitting on some red Burgs from 93, and barolos from the 80’s, so for me to say–gee, maybe aldo is right–is in itself a little surprising. The main message for me is that the wines are really quite enjoyable young. there was not a closed up wine in the bunch, and on this night and for our palates, the wines in the 8-12 year window actually showed the best.

9

Bob–I was really looking forward to the 99. I didn’t organize the tasting, but I do have a bottle of the 99 stashed somewhere that I’ll try to sample soon. We had the 2000 not long ago as part of a 2000 Piedmonte tasting, which is why I think it was left out. I would agree it’s showing quite well (beat out only by the Giacosa barbaresco’s on that night).

10

Thanks for the notes, John.

I’m curious about the provenance. I take it they came from different people at the tasting?

I wonder if some of them might have shown more if they’d been decanted. I take it you just pulled the corks ahead but only poured when you were ready to drink. My instinct would be to decant or double decant ahead.

11

As a post-script to my note, I think an earlier drinking wine of this caliber is a great thing!

I’ve got too much wine that needs to 15-20 years to do what I like in terms of development.

I’m curious to hear about the 08 Produttori line-up, I bought a fair amount of it partially given the great pricing I’ve come across (the Paje for $38 for instance) and Antonio’s praise, but I haven’t popped a bottle yet.

12

Yeah, John. all good questions. the 2001-2008 were all purchased in Seattle thru the usual importer/distributor via our local retail shop (in whose condo we were holding this particular tasting.)and straight into temp controlled cellar. the 96 was same route, into a different member’s temp controlled cellar. 99 was purchased 3 years ago thru Rarewineco. 89 and 99 came from a different cellar in seattle–not a member of our group and I believe passive. The only wine that tasted mishandled was the 99. Of course, there likely is a difference between wines that make it to seattle and wines that have stayed in europe…

the decanting issue is a chronic issue in our group. Our usual host, who is also our retailer, generally ends up in charge of the wines and obviously prefers not to decant most anything unless for sediment. I think he would just as soon pop and pour almost anything, and I suspect he feels he’s missing something if he doesn’t. Most of the rest of us prefer to decant or slow ox well ahead, and that’s what we do if we are inpossession of the wines, but most of us have busy day jobs and often have trouble doing this. so usually we deposit the wines at the retail shop so they can all be stood up, all rech the same temp, etc…

With regard to these wines, I didn’t feel that any suffered from no decant, but it’s a possibility.

13

Good to know, I have an 85 that I was saving for a special occasion, guess I should find one soon!

14

Dear John S

i am no almighty and will learn about wine till i die, but i have had more than my fair share of the wines of the langhe.

it would be a mistake to go with above assumptions. i cant agree at all on peak drinking time of these wines. i find just like with most nebbioli out there opening any wine under the 15 year age mark to either be total waste of time or only showing at best 50% of the wine’s glory. very very few exceptions from warm vintages or odd producers obviously exist. but so little and far in between that makes above generalization stand ground and hold value.

having drank dozens of produttori from 70s and 80s in past 5 years be it asili, rabaja, ovello… non was tired, non was past prime and all held on just fine. few examples from 99, 01, 03 and 04 vintage on the other hand where either tight or very shy in their aromatics profile and the palate had much tension still to be resolved. unlike 64 borgogno barolo other night that was a recent purchase directly from their won cellars that was tired and with 10 min in glass fell apart. ditto 78 oddero, albeit faired a bit better than borgongo still didnt show as well as many produttori barbareschi from same year.

pls dont go with the old saying of barolo is more age worthy than barbaresco. its just not true.

15

I agree 100%. The entire time I was reading this thread, i was shaking my head back and forth. Rabaja is a great bottle of Barbaresco and i’ve had quite a few older bottles that have put Baroli to shame. Maybe not enough time was given to these wines. Typically, I’ll double decant back to bottle and slow-o 6 - 8 for anything younger than an '88.

16

I own more Produttori than any other producer - but let’s not lose sight of the fact that it is a “QPR” Nebbiolo.

While I would tend to agree with the fact that the wines keep very well and reward extended cellaring, it would be a rare occurrence in my experience for a Produttori to put a similarly aged Barolo to shame.

17

One more vote for doesn’t jibe with my experience. Here are my notes from a Rabaja vertical last year. It goes back to the 78 which is with a whole set of 78s.

http://www.finewinegeek.com/tn/2012-03-09_Rare_Produttori_DelPosto/

Here’s another that includes a gorgeous, youthful 1990 Rabaja:

http://www.finewinegeek.com/tn/2010-08-23_BB_Produttori_Braeburn/

To me, Rabaja is the most structured of all the Produttori crus and tends to last the longest. Of course their first bottled crus were in 1967 and I’ve had great bottles of those in the last few years, so . . .


OTOH this recent tasting show several 1990 crus (not including Rabaja) to be fully mature as compared to some 89 and 90 Barolos:

http://www.finewinegeek.com/tn/2013-08-22_WCC_Nebbiolo_Yonos/

18

I’m out out of town and away from an adequate keyboard, so i appologize for the brevity of my comments I fully expected a backlash from my comments. I expected a much more revelatory experience from the older wines. They were very good but not superior to the wines of 10-12 years of age. When I reviewed the wine makers comments, I was surprised at how closely they matched my impressions. I always thought Aldo liked his wines too early, but now I wonder if he’s not correct. Are there others of you out there that have recently had the 2001 and the 89 or 90 back to back that can give your impressions?

19

Ken: what was the Rabaja that you brought in Mag to the Berserkerfest in 2011 at Barbetta? That was one of the greatest wines I have had. Loved it. There was also a mag of it from a different vintage at Serge’s 50th Birthday/Ron’s 70th Birthday in Boston that was superb but I never wrote down the vintage and I forgot to copy the pho before I trashed the cell phone.

20

Jay, that was the 1985.