i have 6 and wanted to see how it was coming along but…i think i just needed a reminder to lay these down.
Thanks for the excellent notes, Otto.
Covid preempted any comprehensive tastings of the '16 Barolos for me. (I gather that was the case for you, as well.) I’d bought some three years ago for a tasting that was never held. I’d been thinking of starting a thread to inquire how they are showing now. Your notes have begun to answer that.
Two questions:
- Do you think this is an awkward time to taste them? Of course, they’re very young, but do you think they’re very hard to assess right now? (It sounds like it isn’t.)
- Do you have a sense now of how the vintage is shaping up relative to 2013?
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This indeed.
Coincidentally, I kept a tasting of predominantly traditional 2013 + 2016 Barolo just last weekend. One thing I learnt there was:
Don’t touch these wines.
While some were quite lovely and most showed great promise, virtually all of them were still very tough and some were somewhat shut down. Even if all weren’t hugely tannic in the sense of being aggressively grippy, most felt still somewhat austere, awkward and even moderately bitter (beyond the normal sour cherry tones).
They aren’t that hard to assess, but I’d say they still don’t offer that much pleasure now compared to the surrounding vintages - and at the moment the 2013 and 2016 wines seemed very similar to each other. When we tried to get any conclusions on the vintages after the tasting, we didn’t get anything we could agree on. Some thought the 2016 were more darker-toned than the 2013, others vice versa. Some thought 2013 showed more heft and body than the 2016, others vice versa. Basically the one thing we could agree on was that they all felt more structured than, say, 2017s and 2015s and really called for additional aging.
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Had the Giulia Negri Serradenari. Very pretty, transparent red fruit. Fine, grippy tannins. Not a waste to open for me. I think it may drink well on the early side (2026+).
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Just returned from the region and had the opportunity to taste through quite a few offerings - mostly 2018 but 16/17 as well. I think 2016 is clearly the best of those 3 vintages, though I think the 2018 will offer a lot of more near term pleasure and is not a vintage to write off at all. Rain during set and late temp spikes made it a hard vintage for sure, but not a throw away. I found the wines perfumed and generous when offered. Wines like the G Rinaldi Crus, Oddero Brunate and the G Conterno Crus are wines I will happily buy, cellar and drink. Note - G Conterno did not make a Monfortino in 16/17/18 and the Francia Cru greatly benefited.
I don’t think 2016 is a dream vintage ala 2010. I think it was a vintage where nothing really went wrong during the growing season. That said, I am not sure that it isn’t a somewhat earlier, riper drinking vintage as well. The sense was that 2019 will be a more “classic” vintage in terms of structure. The 2016 Trediberri Rocche dell"Annunziata I thought was really, really super, admittedly needing lots of air to show. Agree that the G Rinaldi Tre Tine and Brunate from 2016 are fantastic.
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Thanks for the reply, Otto. That’s helpful.
loren.grossman
I don’t think 2016 is a dream vintage ala 2010. I think it was a vintage where nothing really went wrong during the growing season. That said, I am not sure that it isn’t a somewhat earlier, riper drinking vintage as well. The sense was that 2019 will be a more “classic” vintage in terms of structure. The 2016 Trediberri Rocche dell"Annunziata I thought was really, really super, admittedly needing lots of air to show. Agree that the G Rinaldi Tre Tine and Brunate from 2016 are fantastic.
Interesting. That seems to be a minority view about '16, isn’t it? I know Valter Speller, Jancis’s Italian critic, viewed '16 as outstanding. And the Barbarescos I tasted before the world shut down were really excellent.
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This type of discussion seems a lot like comparing 96 point wines and 97 point wines. We’re deep in the realm of personal taste, recency bias, and limited sample sizes. Which of these top vintages (2010/2013/2016) is the best will deliciously debated for decades. The winners will be those with a lot of these wines in their cellars. I don’t mean to say that the discussion is pointless - just the opposite. It’s one of the many pleasures of wine obsession.
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Did the tasting include any of these 2013s: Massolino Barolo, Brovia Barolo or Giacomo Fenocchio Barolo Bussia?
Yep. I would guess that it’s a very difficult time to assess the 2016s. The 2017 I had early on was not much fun with dark cooked flavors, however some bottles later on suggested that developed to the better is a possibility. More freshness and leaning more to red fruit/berries, the B. Mascarello LN comes to mind
With quite a few LN 2018 in good hands showing really well I can imagine that the better 2018s will as @loren.grossman mentioned will offer early pleasure, in the best sense.
At this point, I’m mainly curious to hear perceptions of the character of the vintages with a few more years in the bottle, and how they’re showing now, rather than a ranking. As you say, preferences differ. But I was a little surprised to read Loren describing 2010 as a dream vintage and 2016 as something a bit lesser.
Otto I like how your reviews vary usually between the 90s and 80s unless it is really bad. In school there is nothing wrong with an 85% B.
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As a matter of fact, yes, I had Brovia Barolo 2013 there. Probably among the most toughest and chewiest wines we had. Very impressive and brimming with potential, but quite unyielding at the moment. Not a wine I’d want to open in the next decade or so!
Me too. 2010 Barolos have been superb, but it’d be hard for me to say which was the best vintage - 2010, 2013 or 2016. All superb in their own way (although I’ve had some 2016 Barolos and Barbarescos that have been a bit more ripe than I’d want them to be, but they’ve been in the minority).
Indeed! I do try to employ the full extent of the 50-100 point scale - and having worked in the Finnish alcohol monopoly shop for many years, I really know what kind of stuff there is and where they’d drop in the 50-100 pts scale. Back then we got to taste most of the new products every month and I admit, most wines we tasted were stuff I’d rate between 70 and 80. I’ve also tasted enough lousy and faulty wines to know how bad a wine needs to taste like before I want to go below 70! 
So, yeah, score inflation is definitely a real thing, which is why I want to keep myself very conscious of the phenomenon so that my scores wouldn’t start to creep up slowly, at some point me realizing that I rate even lousy wines I wouldn’t want to drink with +90 scores! It might look a bit weird to a person who has used to see all wines that are basically “just nice and drinkable” awarded 93-95 pts suddenly see me giving such wines 84 points and saying “this is a nice and drinkable wine”, but that’s just me trying to a) use the full 50-100 point range; b) score wines according to the CT scoring guidelines; c) keep scoring inflation at bay.
I actually get some verbal abuse in CT from users who think I don’t know anything about wine and rating them when a wine they love gets “just” 85 points, so it makes me happy whenever someone can appreciate how I’m not trying to become the next Suckling with my wine rating system! 
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Love you man!
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Thanks. The plan was to open one on Sunday. I will reconsider 
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I agree with your overall perspective, though I’m still using a bit less of the scale than you are. But certainly stuff I score in the mid-80s is still good wine just not something I like that much. I will say that anything I’m buying is at least 88+ in general, which isn’t so much a compression of the scoring scale than a statement of where I put my money.
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One of the things I really appreciate with your scores is that you rate the wines without influence of any preconceived bias regardless of the producer. Can easily see how someone with a less open mind and tasting wines loaded with expectations might get a syntax error moment.
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Good plan and I agree with Otto. I had the same experience with 13 Brovia. The 15’s on the other hand both Barolo and Rocche have been beautiful and showing very well.
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Can’t really say. That was certainly Roberto Conterno’s take (and Carlotta Rinaldi’s as well). Note he did not make a Monfortino in 2016.
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Glad to hear. I hold the 2015 vintage high, it’s a better vintage than it’s being credited.
But the 2016 Francia is absolutely stellar, nevertheless
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