Luca hosted us for a tasting of his current Barolo and Barbaresco releases. His digs have grown quite a bit since the first time I tried his 04s in Paje. A fantastic setup in Castiglione.
Tiny bit of brett that blows off leaving a savory and meaty mose with darker nebbiolo fruit and iron. Mid weighted and a little firm on the palate with tar and balsam. Good depth, structure and minerality, but not quite together a little elbows and knees. Firm touch green tannins on the back end. This is really good, even outstanding, with good length, but in the context of the producer, the weak link in the lineup. Even Bruno Giacosa in his prime couldn’t make a great Gallina. (92 points)
A floral cherry fruited and rosy nose. Lovely perfume, pure an beguiling. Mid weighted for Barbaresco, sapid and deep but not heavy with a terrific sense of balance. Transparency and grace. Elegance with freshness, terrific perfume roses and hard candy. Finishes with firm ripe tannins. Classic structure. Terrific. (96 points)
Terrific perfume with rose, violet, tar, and balsam. On the apart there’s depth but no weight, sapid and clean with a sense of freshness and lift. Elegant and highly perfumed with good balancing acidity. Quite long on th back end with tar and hints of red licorice. (95 points)
Meatier ripe and ferrous nose with tar, lovely red and dark berry fruits, savory and florals. Fresh graceful and lifted on the plate with hidden depth. Transparent and mineral driven with fine yet firm tannins. Lovely lift and freshness combined with power. Nuanced and long. (96 points)
Savory and ferrous with red nebbiolo fruit, balsam, iron, and a little green olive. Transparent and focused with depth and focus. Structured yet graceful with excellent perfume and length. Maybe little more overt power than the Rocche but lacking no grace. Firm ripe tannins on the back end. Terrific (96 points)
A deeper nose with roses and hard candy. Pretty haunting perfume. On the plate, it’s deep Sapid more three dimensional. Iron fist in a velvet glove. Full and intense yet elegant. Power with fleeting nuance and lift. Very long. Terrific inner mouth perfume. Effortless. Fantastic (98 points)
A deep nose with even more gravitas with beautiful darker fruit, perfume and a savory slant. Stony, structured, sapid, expansive, and powerful on the palate with some hard candy. Regal. Terrific breadth and depth. Serious and multifaceted finishing with firm ripe beautiful tannins. Effortless power. Stunning. (98 points)
Meatier savory nose with nettle, dark Nebbiolo fruit, black licorice and balsam. More structured than the Asili and Montefico, yet still graceful. Darker and savory on the plate, with tar adding to the whole. Excellent lift and length. Effortless power coupled with grace. (97 points)
An even deeper nose with tar, violet, balsam, iron, wild mint and medicinal herbs. Intense and structured but seemingly only mid plus weighted. Expansive with terrific length. Finishes with ripe firm slightly broader tannins coupled with a sense of harmony and transparency. Lovely lift and freshness. Finesse and power. (97 points)
Haunting perfume. Florals, balsam, dark cherry. It’s intense with a fleeting nuance. Effortless depth with lift and freshness. Shapeshifting and multifaceted. The most complex, yet lightest weighted of the VV group. Kind of like Vigna Rionda with its intensity without weight. This has it all. Iron fist in a velvet glove. Finessed. Ridiculously long balsamic finish. 99 might be stingy. Brilliant. (99 points)
These wines were mind bendingly good. Brilliant, effortless soulful wines. F’ing A. Fantastic.
Hi Tuck - was curious if you had a sense of cellar door pricing for these wines? Prices in the US have shot up so much. Thankfully bought handful of VVs in 2013 and 2016 vintages, just as the prices were inflecting. But my impression is it was the US importer was really trying to push these wine prices higher and higher.
Sadly, these wines are just as expensive. It is bittersweet tasting here, as I truly love the wines and they make me feel really poor. I haven’t bought Crichet Page since '01 (for around 150 USD) and only a couple of the VV’s every once in a while. His Asili and Montefico in '05 were 45e ex cellar. Not so much now.
Let’s find an occasion to open up one of these VVs in NY when you swing by next. Perhaps a tasting? Some questionable CT notes on the 2010 Pira (non VV) that have me wanting to open one of those ASAP as well.
That’s false. The price increases came from the domain who see their wines as reference standard for the region and should be priced that way. The quality is certainly there, the value proposition is a personal matter.
This is what retailers in NYC had told me at the time - big push to get prices up in NYC back around 2013 vintage or so. They mentioned importer, but perhaps it was the ends to justify means from the cellar.
I agree I wish the Roagna wines were cheaper, but I’m not sure they are overpriced when I look at the competition. The Crichet Paje yes, Id say, and that one feels like the pricing is a function more of scarcity than the actual quality of the wine, although quality is very high. But I can buy Monfortino for $800ish on release whereas Crichet Paje is running $1300+ in 2016. I did buy some ‘15 Crichet Paje because it was mind blowing imo at La Festa but the cheapest 2016 CP is 30% more than what I paid for the ‘15 so it hasn’t tempted me.
Focusing on the regular wines and the VVs, can one find better wine at the same price? I’m not sure. The regular 2019 Pira is available for $170ish and is an incredible wine IMO and perfect for long term aging. I actually liked it better than the Pira VV in 2019, as the regular Pira seems more traditional and age worthy than the VV which I found exotic and super finessed. At $170, the Roagna Pira is very competitive or maybe superior in terms of what’s in the bottle IMO to Bartolo Mascarello which sells in the U.S. for considerably more. Giuseppe Rinaldi sells for double in the U.S. Cappellano is higher. Burlotto is higher. Conterno is higher.
At the higher end, the 2006 Riserva Pira was a recent release after spending a decade in cement after the usual time in barrel. It is expensive, selling for $500-700 in the U.S. depending on when you bought it. But imo it’s one of the best wines I’ve tasted from Piedmont, and every bottle I’ve opened has been perfect and ready to drink. One can’t say the same about most aged Barolo, where for example the flaw rate on bottles from Bartolo Mascarello that sell for $400-500 (for top vintages like 2010 on the secondary market) is crazy high and the quality never reaches the level of that ‘06 Riserva Pira imo even in the best bottles.
I think the Roagna wines are special, unique wines that are hard to compare to other wines from the region…maybe Burlotto and Rinaldi are the closest stylistic comparison and those are as expensive or more expensive.
This is such a hard question because FMV is in the eye(wallet) of the beholder.
I was delighted to snag some 2013 Pira for under $100, so in that price range is about where I’d value it. There are so many excellent Barolos under $100 that something has to be really special to get me to spend more. Still, the Pira is an excellent wine, and definitely qualitatively at the level of wines that often sell around $150 - I’m not offended by that price, but I’m not a buyer.
The VV is harder, because it gets you into some some rarified territory. Pretty much considered a top 10 quality Barolo. So that gets it into the $250-$350 range which I think is more or less fair (though the lower end of that range is more fair!). In fact I did pick up a couple bottles of the 2019 for about $320. Which makes it among the most expensive new release Barolos I’ve ever bought.
For the curious: In the last few vintages, other purchases in that range for me are Cappellano Pie Franco, B. Mascarello, Burlotto and G. Rinaldi. So those are my comps. Of course most of these are pushing upwards towards and into the $400s (at least in the US). Which means I’m buying less than I used to and will likely buy even less (or zero) in the future. So goes the wine game!
I find some similarity in recent vintages from G. Rinaldi, and in the ethereal quality of Burlotto’s wines, but they are not exactly the same style - so yeah, I would say there is no comparison to Roagna. The wines are gentle, light in color (recent Rinaldi is similar in that respect) but very aromatic and complex. I find they often have secondary flavors even when young, but they’re also very fresh and vibrant wines.
I could see someone liking a different style of wine better, to be clear, but IMO there is very little in common between say a bottle of Vajra Barolo and a bottle of Roagna Barolo/Barbaresco.
Luca has tamed some of the rustic qualities the wines used to show. They go through an extended elevage but still manage to retain freshness, as you point out. This makes them kinda unique.
Agree. I like both for different reasons. However, since Roagna is out of my market right now, I only have bought Vajra in recent vintages. I’ve also had a problem following the wines up the price escalator (this has happened to me with other wines as well). That’s probably a psychological thing and not really tied to the quality and uniqueness of the wines.