1995 Monchiero Barolo Roere. I don’t drink a lot of aged Barolo, exploration purchase off auction.
Decanted off a lot of sediment, both fine and caked on Tue bottom. Nice, classic entry level aged Barolo. On the leaner side, mild red fruit and sois bois flavors. Good acidity, with slightly chewy tannins. I don’t see this getting any better, but I expect it will hold for some years still.
Side note: one of the reasons I’ve stayed away from aged Barolo is the insanely wide ranging POV on decanting, sediment, etc. For this wine, at first, after splash decanting, it tasted tired, too much tomato. After 45 min of air, the fruit came out, nicely balancing the aged sous bois. YMMV
Pop n’ pour into a Grassl Cru. From the get-go, this has a complex and aromatic nose of dried blackberry, cedar, roasted chestnuts, cinnamon, dried violets, menthol, and a touch of cacao nib. For me, this wine straddles the line between rustic and polished and has a lot of character. The palate has gorgeous flavors of black cherry, licorice, dried herbs, and leather, which becomes more concentrated and powerful after a couple hours of the wine being open. Full-bodied, but suave with its fine-grained tannins that are already nicely incorporated and playing well with the fresh acidity and a lingering core of earthy minerals.
The wine feels like it has just come out of hibernation, developing some secondary and early tertiary character, but has plenty of runway for continued maturation. It was great with a roast chicken dinner, but also great for sipping on its own. My first Vallana, I’ll definitely be stashing away some of these for the cellar and exploring this producer’s other cuvées.
It is fine to open. I am however sure it is better 2-3 years from now, so depends on what you want from it and how hard they are to source for you I guess.
This really exceeded expectations, was brick colored and offered quite a strong lovely Nebbiolo nose and still had some fruit character. I sampled it throughout the day and was a little worried that I’d opened too early as it was not tasting nearly as interesting after a couple of hours, but by the time dinner was served it was singing.
2019 Bruno Giacosa Nebbiolo D’Alba - this has all the charming elegance of Mourvedre :sarcasm: with all the tannin and structure of a Nebbiolo. Seriously, this wine is frankly unpleasant and not just because of the structure. I’m not sure what happened here but I’ve had more than one bottle that left the same impression.
Editing to add a comparison:
2019 Ugo Lequio Barbaresco Gallina - very delicious, sure it has the young Nebbiolo tannin in spades, but the delicious fruit is there and I’m very happy to be drinking this wine now and I feel like it will be even better in the future. Highly recommended.
Yum. I imported this so I’ve had a chance to follow it from before release. It hit a short closed phase and for a few years but it’s been progressively opening over the last year or two. A nice vintage, 2013.
It’s always nice when something exceeds expectations and that’s what we have here. 70 was a fine vintage but I wouldn’t rank it at top level. This has been hanging around in the cellar for a good number of years and always kind of neglected in favor is better vintages. Not so much that I thought of selling it.
Cork looked really good yet still broke in half and crumbled. Oh well, through the metal coffee strainer, into the decanter, into another bottle and voila. Practically zero cooped up, musty funky smell. Fresher fruit than expected. Opening up as I type. Tannins perfect, almost imperceptible. Really gorgeous nose. No mistaking this for something young although it’s so clean and subtly puffing off the classic tar and roses. Palate is full and refreshing at the same time. Sometimes older Barolo can feel a little tiring when they are getting tired with that rusty teak aroma even though it is interesting. Not here. One of those that makes me repeat what I say every time I get one like this: Why bother with anything else?
@MarkSchneider I’m ok with it. There have to be some wines, that for some reason, overperform their ratings and price (relatively, of course). Vajra, for sure, is one.
The winery that later became Le Piane along with an owner change.
Half the bottle was decanted for the first evening as I started to see the finer sediments (yes the talk about sediments affected this call), and the remaining decanted the following day.
Beautiful transparent red with orange/amber towards the edges.
First pour right after decanting:
Menthol, cola, herbs, some undergrowth, spices, cherries and raspberries.
Similar in mouth, light feel, silky tannins with fine grained texture. A long sapidic finish.
A few minutes in, more strawberries and the wine is starting to lift - the resurrection, youth and energy of a not old wine! The presence is just growing - wow.
10 minutes later and hints of peppery notes coming through.
More or less the same on day two.
Blows my mind how good this wine continues to be at the 40 year mark. Wish I got to taste the wines in their youth (and being old enough for it), perhaps not a surprise Christoph Künzli did what he could to become a winemaker and take over the winery/vineyard in a then forgotten former great wine region.
