<a target="_blank" href="http://www.fourseasonsrestaurant.com/index.php">The Four Seasons Restaurant</a>

99 East
52 Street

New
York, New York 10022

Tel. +1
(212) 754.9494

Wines:

2000 Cappellano Barolo Pie Franco

2001 Cappellano Barolo Pie Franco

1996 Cappellano Barolo Pie Franco

Food:

Crudo tasting; tuna &amp; finger lime,
fluke &amp; avocado, abalone &amp; grapefruit

Burrata; speck, arugula, balsamic
vinegar

Maryland crabmeat cakes rainbow
carrots, wasabi remoulade

Grilled wild king salmon; farro primavera, sorrel

Roasted filet mignon

This fabulous dinner at the Four Seasons Restaurant with a dear
friend provided a great opportunity to check in on three Barolos from
Cappellano.

The Four Seasons remains a Manhattan institution. By day, the
Grill Room and the Pool Room play host to a who’s who in the worlds of finance,
entertainment and business. At night, the Pool Room, with its large, central
illuminated pool, becomes one of the most evocative and romantic dining rooms
in the city. Even after all these years the late 1950s design by Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe is a
model of timeless elegance and beauty.

The food at the Four Seasons is best
described as American with a few international accents. Our dinner is fabulous.
The crudo tasting and burrata are delicious and light starters. My favorite
dishes on this night are the Maryland crab cakes, a signature dish of simplicity
and pure deliciousness, and the filet mignon, which is superb. 

<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1402084911972-FourCrab.jpg"> Maryland crabmeat cakes, a Four Seasons classic

Three Barolos from Cappellano pair beautifully with the food. Cappellano
makes two Barolos from the Gabutti vineyard in Serralunga. Both are made along
rigorously traditional lines. The Barolo Rupestris emerges from a parcel
planted on American rootstock. It is generally a rich, ample wine with notable
depth and density. Cappellano’s Barolo Pie Franco, from own-rooted Michet
clones that form very loose bunches, is much more aromatic and beguiling in
style.

When I first started visiting the estate in the early 2000s and
writing about the wines in Piedmont
Report, Cappellano was virtually unknown except to a small circle of
hard-core Piedmont devotees. The Barolos were readily available and priced far
below most peers. A few years later I moved to New York, where mid-1990s
vintages could be found for $30-40. I remember paying $100 a bottle for the
1978. Those days are long gone. Today, the Barolos, especially the Pie Franco,
is virtually impossible to find, even in Alba’s wine shops.

<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1402084895490-FourCover.jpg"> 

The 2000 Barolo Pie
Franco lifts from the glass with exquisite aromatics and bright red fruit.
Soft, enveloping and silky on the palate, the 2000 captures the best qualities
of this warm vintage. Although it is quite beautiful today, the 2000 is quite
fresh for the year and has enough depth to drink well for at least another
decade. The lighter, airy texture is a perfect match for our first courses. From
the moment it is opened, the 2001 Barolo
Pie Franco is utterly captivating. Here the flavors are broad, rich and
intense, with the verticality of a skyscraper and a complex personality that
continues to develop over several hours. With air, the 2001 can be enjoyed
today, but readers who want to experience the full range of Barolo aromatics
will want to hold on to bottles for a few more years. What a beautiful wine
this is. The 1996 Barolo Pie Franco
is another beast entirely. Deeply colored and intense on the palate, the 1996
has a level of hoisin-like concentration that reminds me of the 1978. At the
same time, though, the aromatics are slightly oxidized and suggest less than
perfectly clean barrels. In that sense, the 1996 is an old-school Barolo, in
both the positive and negative. While all three wines are delicious, the
vintage I would seek out most is 2001, as it has another two decades or more of
brilliant drinking ahead of it. 

-- Antonio Galloni

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