I couldn’t resist checking out these wines, which turned out to be very good values.
2006 La Loggia Barbaresco - Quite correct, taughtly wound nebbiolo. Fairly simple – more like a Nebbiolo d’Alba than a Barbaresco, perhaps, without a lot of character – but hard to beat at $13 or so. ~85 points for me.
2005 La Loggia Barolo - Also good, true nebbiolo flavors, but with much fuller, riper fruit. Serving these two blindly, this was everyone’s preference. Again, no great character, but it’s hard to think of a nebbiolo that’s a match in quality at $17. 86-87 points for me.
The labels state that the wines were bottle at different wineries, one in the province of Asti (AT 5192) and one in Cuneo (the province of Barolo and Barbaresco, CN 5801). I haven’t been able to find out on-line which cantine those are, and the web site for the importer listed on the label (http://www.santiniwines.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) no longer exists.
I’d be curious if anyone else can crack the winery code numbers.
We also had:
2004 Musso Barbaresco - Pora Some friends and I happily put away two delicious bottles of the 04 Musso Rio Sordo at Tomasso’s in Bensonhurst in December, so I was curious to try this. Both wines are available for $22.50 by the case at PJ’s. Unfortunately, this bottle of Pora was tired, with a marked caramelized/oxidized note. Not what it should be – and not close in quality to the Rio Sordo. I’ve stocked up on the Rio Sordo. While it’s $5 more than the La Loggia Barolo, it was a much more interesting wine.
