1999 Barolo Monprivato

Mauro Mascarello's 1999 Barolos are absolutely brilliant. In particular, the 1999 Monprivato is one of the finest wines of this great Barolo vintage.

At a recent meeting of my local tasting group the focus was on the wines of Giuseppe Mascarello, one of Barolo's historic producers. For this event we were fortunate to have Mauro Mascarello as our guest. The focus of the evening was Mascarello's most famous wine, Monprivato, and his new luxury bottling the Riserva Ca' d'Morissio. Chef Silvano Fiorindo, a veteran of Cipriani in New York, Buenos Aires and his native Venice, prepared an exquisite meal to accompany the wines. Chef Fiorindo's menu started with a thinly sliced of carpaccio of sirloin. Seared on the outside and cooked perfectly to medium-rare in the center, it was an ideal dish with which to begin the dinner. He then prepared a zucchini risotto that paid homage to his Venetian roots in its style. That was followed by delicious sautéed veal cutlets served with shitake mushrooms, a dish that paired beautifully with our flight of Monprivatos from the 1980s. We finished with a selection of artisan cheesed with which we lingered over the final wines. It was a great evening of wine, food and conversation.

The following wines were tasted at a class on Barolo and Barbaresco I held 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.

These wines were tasted at a class on Barolo and Barbaresco I held 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.

Mauro Mascarello perfectly embodies the hard work ethic for which the Piedmontese are so famous. He is perhaps the only person I know who would describe Vinitaly, the chaotic trade show, as ‘vacation,' since it is time away from his vineyards and cellar. Mascarello has been personally making the wines at his estate since 1967 and owns one of the most impressive track records in Piedmont. That notwithstanding, Mascarello's Barolos continue to be less well-known than they deserve. Perhaps that is because his cellar is in the town of Monchiero, closer to Dogliani than to the Barolo-producing zones. Or perhaps it is Mascarello's more introspective personality and traditional approach that have resulted in his wines not being duly recognized. Whatever the reasons, there can be no doubt that Mascarello's wines, and in particular his signature Barolo, Monprivato, are among the region's top bottlings. Fortunately for consumers prices have remained very fair here and the wines represent some of the best values in the region. I consistently find this producer's Barolos to be the hardest to accurately assess in their youths. Often unimpressive at first, they are among the most fascinating wines to follow because their evolution in the bottle can be extraordinary. With time the wines frequently blossom into profound expressions of Nebbiolo. Needless to say, the additional perspective gained from re-visiting these wines is always illuminating. Mascarello has turned out three outstanding Barolos in the 1999 vintage. In my blind tastings the wines performed brilliantly, proving that the best traditionally made wines can more than hold their own alongside the finest modern-styled wines. Mascarello's wines show a purity of expression and finesse that puts them among the most successful wines of the vintage. As I have written here before, Mascarello's 1999 Monprivato is a sensational effort. It continues to evolve positively and my sense is that history will judge it as one of the great wines of the vintage as well as one of the most profound Monprivatos of all time. Mascarello has decided against bottling his 2002 Barolos, but consumers will find an excellent range of recent vintages on the market today. I will have an in-depth look at this producer's older vintages in Issue 8, with notes on more than a dozen wines going back to 1967. “1999 was an excellent vintage for us,” says Mauro Mascarello. “Although the summer was not as hot as 1998, overall the weather was more balanced, allowing us to achieve good ripeness in the vineyards. We began harvesting our Nebbiolos on October 10th, which is the optimal period to harvest fruit that is ripe, with good concentration as well as perfume. It is very much a classic vintage. The wines are complex and potent, yet they also have a sense of proportion with sweet tannins that provide finesse.” Nothing much has changed here in terms of vinification which remains very traditional. The wines see a fermentation/maceration of 20-25 days with two pumpovers a day. Malolactic fermentation takes place in steel and the malos are typically long, with some tanks finishing their malos the following spring. The wines complete their aging in large oak casks and are bottled without fining or filtration during the summer of the fourth year following the harvest.

In May of this year I attended two very special tastings at Cru in New York. Winemakers Roberto Conterno and Mauro Mascarello were in town to present extensive verticals of their Barolos. The first tasting took place in the afternoon and featured current releases as well as a few older vintages. Although I generally avoid trade events because they don't allow enough time to accurately assess each wine, this sit-down tasting, which was hosted by importer Doug Polaner, was extremely well organized. Cru Wine Director Robert Bohr and his staff did an outstanding job in coordinating the service of the wines, which was no small feat. Between the afternoon tasting and the dinner that followed, I don't think I have ever tasted so many profound and emotionally moving wines in a single day! The wines were double decanted a few hours prior to serving.

Mauro Mascarello led the group though several flights of his most famous wine, Monprivato, as well as his newer Riserva bottling, Ca' d' Morissio. The Giuseppe Mascarello winery boasts a rich lineage that goes back to 1881 when Giuseppe Mascarello purchased his first plot of land in Monforte. His son Maurizio purchased vineyards in Monprivato in 1904 that remain the core of the family's holdings.

After having spent many years working at the estate with his father, Giuseppe II, Mauro Mascarello made his first wines in 1967. In 1970 Mauro began to vinify the grapes from his various vineyards separately. Although Mascarello defines the decade between 1968 and 1977 as one in which he experimented with various vinification techniques, today the wines are made in a very traditional manner. “There aren't many of us traditionalists left,” jokes Mascarello. Mauro has recently been joined in the winery by his son Giuseppe, ensuring that this estate's heritage will continue into the future.

The Monprivato vineyard, located in Castiglione Falletto, is one of the great sites in Piedmont. The Mascarello family has owned their plots, which measure just over six hectares, for over 100 years. Within Monprivato there had always been a special parcel from which Mascarello hoped to produce a riserva. In the mid-1980s Mascarello began a quest that would take him over four years to identify the best and most suitable clones of the Michet varietal to plant in the vineyard. The parcel was finally re-planted in 1988 and Mascarello named the new wine Ca' d'Morissio (house of Maurizio) in honor of his grandfather.

Both wines are traditionally made and see a long fermentation lasting between 18-25 days, depending on the vintage, and extended aging in Slavonian oak casks of about 36 months for the Monprivato and at least an additional 12 months for the Ca' d'Morissio.

The first vintage for Ca' d'Morissio was 1993, although just a few bottles were made, while full production began in 1995. Mascarello releases this wine only when he believes there is a noticeable difference in quality between Monprivato and Ca' d'Morissio. Other recent vintages include 1997 and the as yet unreleased 1996. There is no Ca' d'Morissio for vintages 1998-2000, although there is a 2001.

Mauro Mascarello loves the 1999 vintage, but notes that the wines are a bit tough and hard to taste today. They're more structured than the '98s, he adds, but also rich and fat. Vintage 2000 was a hot year, and a good September with some well-timed rainfall resulted in sugar-laden grapes with very good phenolic maturity. The wines are easier than the '98s, whose tannins are not as round as those of the '99s or '00s, Mascarello adds. The 2001s were also very ripe, he told me, and the crop level was high. Unfortunately, Mascarello did not present the 2001s; rather, he showed me essentially the same Barolos I tasted two years earlier, though of course this time the 1999s and 2000s were in bottle. (Douglas Polaner Selections, New York, NY; W. J. Deutsch & Sons, White Plains, NY; and Classic Wine Imports, Brookline, MA)

I continue to be charmed by Mauro Mascarello's superb Barolo Monprivato, from Castiglione Falletto, a scented, aromatically fascinating wine that's typically understated in its youth but shows a classical Barolo evolution with 10 or 15 years in the bottle. The Ca d'Morissio, from a portion of the Monprivato hillside replanted in 1988 with a selected clone of michet, may be even more perfumed than the "regular" Monprivato. Mascarello describes it as a more feminine style of wine, with more sweetness in its youth, but a couple of the vintages I tasted in September seemed especially penetrating and backward. The Ca d'Morissio is likely to become one of the region's stellar examples as the vines mature.Mascarello's favorite recent vintage remains the 1996; he allows that the following four vintages fall a bit short in structure and power. "Ninety ninety-seven is an elegant wine with decent structure," Mascarello told me, "while '98 is harmonious and nicely balanced. The '99s are round, elegant wines. Technical ripeness came early but real ripeness of polyphenols came later. So we had lots of alcohol without a huge structure. For many people, wood tannins had a tendency to dry these wines. Two thousand is a good year, not far off in style from 1999, but without great structure or aging potential."