2004 Barolo Riserva Monfortino

Roberto Conterno made not one, but two of the wines of the vintage in 2004. These Barolos were utterly captivating in barrel and they just keep getting better in bottle. The 2004 Monfortino remains as it always has been; a model of finesse, while the Cascina Francia continues to put on weight. While both wines can be enjoyed today, they are also years away from peaking. Oddly enough, the Monfortino is more accessible than the Cascina Francia at this point in time. I can only imagine how hard it must have been for Roberto Conterno to make these wines, as his father, Giovanni Conterno, passed away in February that year. As for the wines, well, they are simply stellar. For more historical perspective and a look back at Monfortino, readers might enjoy notes from the London Monfortino Vertical.

This wine was tasted as part of Giacomo Conterno Barolo Riserva Monfortino 1970-2006, the first complete vertical of every vintage of Monfortino bottled in magnum between 1970 and 2006. The event was held on May 12, 2014 in London.

It's always an interesting experience tasting with Roberto Conterno, as his take on recent vintages does not necessarily track that of his colleagues. Conterno views 2008 as a unique year. "We picked late but the wines are fruity more than minerally," he said. In quantity of tannins, he went on, the 2008s are lower than 2009 but higher than 2007. "The most tannic recent vintages for us were 2010, 2006 and 2002." Conterno compares 2009 to 2007 but with a bit more acidity. There will be no 2007 Monfortino, as this cuvee was not rich enough in tannins or sufficiently powerful. Needless to say, the Cascina Francia, Conterno's only Barolo in '07, is an outperformer. In September, Conterno had not yet decided if there would be a Monfortino in 2009.

The drive from Barolo to Monforte was a little different this year. Peering across the valley over the hillside where the Conterno winery sits, the observant eye will notice a number of large barrels outside the main building. Roberto Conterno had no choice but to replace a number of his casks this year as the staves had begun to bend from many years of use, and Conterno was understandably afraid of the unthinkable, that the casks could finally yield to old age full of wine. Still, he was clearly upset by having to replace barrels that he personally moved into the new winery with his father during the summer of 1985. Just to think of the wines that were racked during that move. The 1978, 1979 and 1982 Monfortinos were all aged in those casks. To be honest, seeing the empty space in the winery as the new casks were about to arrive was quite a shock. The wines, however, were not. I tasted all of the wines currently in cask plus the new releases from bottle. My high expectations were easily surpassed. Conterno fans have a lot to look forward to. Roberto Conterno has decided to give his new Nebbiolo from the Cerretta vineyard another year in barrel. At the moment Conterno is leaning towards releasing the 2009 as a Langhe Nebbiolo rather than Barolo, although that could always change.

A visit to this immaculate cellar is always one of the highlights of a trip to Piedmont. Proprietor Roberto Conterno has a number of gorgeous wines in barrel. I tasted just about every wine in cask and was simply blown away by the quality across all of the wines. For starters, the 2009s from his newly acquired parcels in Cerretta are a step up from the 2008s.

After tasting three stunning vintages of Per Cristina with Domenico Clerico, I drove up the road to see Roberto Conterno, where I was treated to two more of the highlights of my September tour: the 2004 and 2006 Barolo Monfortino. Conterno describes these vintages as similar in style, just as he links 2007 and 2005 as rounder, more elegant wines. But the 2007 does not have quite the tannic structure to merit a riserva bottling, he told me. Still, Conterno, like many of his colleagues in the Langhe, described 2007 as "a masterpiece for barbera." He calls 2006 "an intermezzo between 2005 and 2004." The wines, he says, combine the structure of 2004 with the fruit notes of 2005. (Numerous importers, including Douglas Polaner Selections, Mt. Kisco, NY and The Rare Wine Company, Sonoma, CA)

Roberto Conterno's 2002 Barolo Monfortino is a legend before its time, as the neighbors have been talking about it for years and the wine is still nowhere near being bottled. In this mostly dreadful vintage in which virtually no producers released single-vineyard wines, Conterno announced early on that he'd be offering the estate's flagship Monfortino bottling. The reason? Conterno's Cascina Francia vines in Serralunga were spared the September hailstorm, and Conterno let the fruit hang very late in order to get sound phenolic ripeness. "It basically stopped raining after the early September hailstorm in the region and we benefited from a long period with cool nights. We eventually harvested in Cascina Francia on October 18 and 19, eliminating only the dried grapes. There was very little need to throw out anything else in 2002. " Conterno went on: "There was no in-between in this vintage," he told me. "There's either nebbiolo, which in this region was unfortunately often bottled as Barolo, or there's wine with great power. When we saw what we had harvested, my father said 'let's make only Monfortino. '" Conterno told me I was the first journalist he had showed the wine to (?), then made me promise not to publish a note. I can report that the sample I tasted, though reduced, had a very deep color; a wonderfully primary, sappy nose; almost shockingly young flavors of black fruits and minerals; and building tannins that reached the incisors. It clearly offers outstanding potential, but it remains to be seen how the market will respond to an expensive cult bottling from a forgettable vintage. As a rule, Conterno bottles his Monfortino after seven years of aging in large ovals. ("The reason we harvest so late is that we use only the tannins from the grapes, so we need to have full phenolic maturity," Conterno explained. ) He racks his wine three or four times in the first year, then once a year "at most" thereafter. "The 2001 went two or three years without a racking," he told me. "There's no rule; it depends on how the wine tastes. You know, it's more important that people recognize my wines in a tasting than like them. Otherwise we risk getting lost in the ocean of wine. " Conterno loves the 2004 vintage for both barbera and nebbiolo. "We had incredible fruit and there are many similarities to 2001: similar quantity and similar elements. In both years we eliminated about half of the grapes in a green harvest, and we made only about 28 hectoliters per hectare of Barolo in both years. " (Numerous importers, including Douglas Polaner Selections, New York, NY and The Rare Wine Company, Sonoma, CA)