2004 Barolo Brea Vigna Ca' Mia

Brovia's 2004 Barolos are super-impressive. The wines showed as well or, in some cases, even better than they did as young wines. I would be remiss in not mentioning the straight Barolo, which has really blossomed in bottle. Simply put, 2004 is a great vintage for Brovia, one of Piedmont's historic, old-school estates making wine that is deeply steeped in tradition but also very much alive in the present. For more historical perspective, readers might enjoy this extensive vertical of the flagship Barolo Rocche.

Just when I thought I was getting a fix on the relative merits and different styles of the past few vintages, the Brovias ventured the opinion that their 2006 Barolos are characterized by finesse and elegance and are rounder than their '05s. In other words, the 2005s are the powerful wines here, with some of them showing slightly rustic herbal and peppery nuances. Elena Brovia compared the family's 2005s to past vintages like '01, '99 and even '96, although she was quick to point out that the '96s are less sweet and have harder tannins. On the other hand, Elena's husband Alex Sanchez noted, "the 2006s weren't especially strong or powerful at the beginning but they have changed a lot." Still, the '05s are slightly higher in acidity than the '06s, which in turn are higher than the '04s. My notes in this issue include a couple of 2004s that had not been bottled as of my last visit in September of 2007.

This is a terrific set of wines from Brovia. For reasons I can't quite understand Brovia remains incredibly overlooked considering the quality of the juice they put in the bottle. In recent years Brovia has been making superb wines in an enlightened traditional style that is immensely appealing. The estate favors long fermentations. The single-vineyard Barolos are aged in French oak casks, while the Barolo (made from young vines) is aged in Slavonian oak. The resulting wines offer notable complexity and tons of site-specific detail, which makes them great choices for learning about some of Piedmont's top terroirs. Even better, prices have remained exceedingly fair in relative terms, although US importer Neal Rosenthal declined to provide pricing on the 2004 Barolos. Readers should be aware that Brovia has decided to hold back the release of the 2004 Barolo Villero as they believe the wine needs more time. These are some of my notes from a barrel sample of that wine I tasted in April 2007: 'stunning....sublime....elegant.' Simply put, Brovia is on fire. Readers won't want to miss out on these exceptional wines.

On my latest visit to this estate, Giacinto Brovia was barely able to contain his enthusiasm for the (not-yet-picked) 2007 nebbiolo crop, which he believed offered the potential to be one of the greatest Barolo vintages of his lifetime. But 2004 is no slouch here. According to daughter Cristina Brovia, it's a "traditional, outstanding vintage-rich and classic. " The Brovias did a lot of green harvesting to bring down the crop load to about 45 hectoliters per hectare. In fact, added Elena Brovia, Cristina's sister, there was actually more fruit in 2001 due to some rain at the end of the growing season. In contrast, noted Alex Sanchez, Elena's husband, "we couldn't cut off any leaves in 2003 because the grapes needed the shade. " Nor was this extreme growing season a year for serious green pruning, he added, as the crop was already too concentrated. "We like the 2003s," Alex summarized, "but they're obviously not going to be long-aging wines. "