The ‘Legends of Piedmont’ at Crush

The following wines were tasted at a class on Barolo and Barbaresco I led at Crush Wine and Spirits in mid-town Manhattan in February 2006.  The evening provided a great opportunity to check in on a few new releases as well as taste some of the region’s benchmark wines from nearly all of the most important vintages back to 1961.

Flight #1

These first two wines are great examples of how far traditionally made wines have come in recent years.  Once criticized for being hard to understand when young, today there can be no doubt that these wines often show well at an early stage.  While these Barolos will be even better with a few more years of cellaring, they are also drinking beautifully now.  I would expect the 2001 Cascina Francia to close down at some point in the future, while the 1999 Monprivato seems to be in a period of expansiveness.

2001 G. Conterno Barolo Cascina Francia – Medium red.  Conterno’s 2001 Cascina Francia confirms its stature as one of the great wines of the vintage.   It offers captivating, highly nuanced layers of rose, spice, sweet red fruit and mineral flavors on a medium-bodied frame with extraordinary length in an understated yet profoundly expressive interpretation of Nebbiolo.  Blessed with fine, silky tannins, it is also very open at this stage, although my guess is that it will shut down over the next few months.  Readers who haven’t tasted this wine yet owe it to themselves to do so, as it seems destined to become one of the house’s legendary Barolos.  96/drink after 2009, 02/06

1999 G. Mascarello Barolo Monprivato – Medium red.  The 1999 Monprivato offers suggestions of flowers, sweet dark red fruit, licorice and minerals with notable weight on the palate, superb persistence and a final lingering note of sweetness on the fresh finish.   It is an uncharacteristically rich and full-bodied Monprivato at this stage and on this day it was absolutely amazing, dazzling tasters with its complexity, balance and sheer profoundness.  As I have written in these pages before, Mascarello did not bottle his Riserva Ca’ d’Morissio in 1999 and there can be no doubt that the Monprivato benefits from the added richness of the fruit that might have otherwise gone into the Riserva.   Monprivato remains one of the great values in Barolo and this 1999 is another wine that future generations will look back on as one of the vintage’s finest.   I have been fortunate to taste older vintages of Monprivato on many occasions and this wine’s aging potential is decades.  The 1999 is a must-have wine.  95+/drink after 2011, 02/06