1998 Barolo

This wine was tasted as part of a vertical tasting held in London in April 2016. The wines were arranged in five thematic flights. Our second flight looks at four vintages in the late 1990s and early 2000s that are also in their prime drinking windows, with the possible exception of the 1999, which is still quite young.

1998 has always been an interesting vintage for Barolo. Caught between the more hyped 1996 and 1997 on one end, and 2000 and 2001 on the other, the 1998s have often been overlooked. It also didn't help that the wines were first released during a period global economic malaise. While 1998 is not a truly iconic, legendary vintage, these Barolos are great choices for medium-term drinking as a number of wines are entering their early maturity, making them great choices for readers who are cellaring wines from Piedmont's sturdier vintages such as 1996, 1999 and 2001.

Piedmont experienced mostly warm weather in 1998 with spells of drought, though nowhere near the extremes seen in 1997. The wines have always been perfumed and accessible, with an attractive softness to the fruit. Even better, the vast majority of the wines have never shut down to the extent that wines from cooler vintages often do. The 1998s are extremely consistent across the board, and that level of outstanding quality may very well end up being the vintage's strongest attribute. As is typically the case, the Barolos of La Morra and Barolo are the most forward, while those of Serralunga are the freshest. Most of these wines were from my cellar, purchased and cellared since release, although I tasted a few of the wines a second time with the producers.

With each passing vintage, the list of techniques the self-styled "Last of the Mohicans" does not use grows longer: "No concentrators, no commercial yeasts, no rotofermenters, no crus, no wines with fantasy names, no barriques." Bartolo Mascarello considers the estate's '98 to be a classically styled Barolo. Daughter Maria Teresa describes '97 as elegant and fine, but without the great structure of '98, which she says is in the style of '96 and '90. "Both '98 and '99 were big crops," Maria Teresa added, but 2000 was smaller due to a difficult flowering. It was the '98 that stood out on my visit in September, with the '99 a bit stunned by the August bottling. At the time of my visit, Maria Teresa was lamenting the hailstorm of 2002. "We did twice as much work as usual in the vines during the summer, but there's no harvest to speak of." Robert Chadderdon Selections, New York, NY)

Ultra-traditionalist Bartolo Mascarello produces 18,000 to 20,000 bottles of Barolo in "a good typical year like 1998," but offered just 12,000 from '96, a vintage that began with a problematic flowering. His sole Barolo bottling is a classic blend of fruit from multiple sites. (On an earlier visit, Mascarello told me: "I don't make wine with fantasy names. I don't make crus I don't make wine in barriques My wines don't have perfume of vanilla and Limousin oak. I'm the last of the Mohicans.") Mascarello prunes short, and has green harvested for many years. "Now it the mode," he notes. Mascarello still vinifies his Barolos in concrete tanks without benefit of temperature control.