1970 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo
BY ANTONIO GALLONI |
A door to another time in Piedmont opens with the 1970 Barolo, a wine made by Battista Rinaldi long before his son, Beppe, ran the winery and well before his granddaughters, Marta and Carlotta, were even born. It was a time of extreme poverty in the Langhe. Families struggled to survive. Barolo was an obscure wine by any measure. Sort of like the holiday spice cakes relatives give to each other but that no one ever eats. It’s hard to believe, but up until at least the 1950s, land prices for a hectare of Dolcetto and Nebbiolo for Barolo were roughly equivalent!
Nineteen seventy is an under the radar vintage for Barolo that has lived under the long shadow cast by 1971, one of the greatest vintages of all time for the Langhe. But there are some jewels in 1970, including the Mascarello Monprivato (its first vintage), the Conterno Monfortino and a number of wines from Bruno Giacosa that, sadly, I have not tasted in some time. (As a side note, some of the other epic wines for 1970 babies are Latour, Petrus, Vega-Sicilia, Cristal and the Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon, which is Monte Bello, but not labeled as such.)
