2000 Barolo Riserva Monfortino

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.

These are two exceptional Baroli from proprietor Roberto Conterno. The Cascina Francia shows the sexiness of the vintage, while Monfortino captures the power. The former is ready to deliver pleasure now, the latter may very well prove to be nearly immortal.

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)

This is another set of superb releases from Giacomo Conterno one of the bastions of traditionally made Barolos. While Conterno's wines have often been profound, in recent vintages the estate has found another level of finesse that was sometimes m issing in the wines. It is hard to say if that is because of a general trend towards warmer vintages, the estate's focus on making just three wines, or small improvements in vineyard and cellar work, but the fact remains that over the past few vintages Roberto Conterno has produced the best and most cons istently outstanding wines in h is venerable firm's long h istory. The wines he has in barrel amply confirm th is very positive trend.

Roberto Conterno rates 1999 tops among recent vintages, followed by 2001 and then 2000. "Nineteen ninety-nine is the most complex wine," he told me, "while the 2000 is a very elegant Barolo for earlier drinking. Two thousand one was an excellent vintage with a tendency toward overproduction," he went on, adding that by cutting a lot of grapes in August he was able to limit production to about 30 hectoliters per hectare. "The young 2001s are currently sterner than the relatively open 2000s," he noted. As I reported in Issue 105, the estate replaced its freisa and dolcetto with barbera and nebbiolo after the 2000 vintage, and now ages its barbera for 21 months in large casks (prior to the 2001 vintage, the barbera was bottled the summer after the harvest). But with that exception, Conterno pointed out, "nothing has changed in the vinification here, and there is never any clarification of the wines prior to bottling. "

Among the new developments at this renowned traditionalist: the Conternos replaced their dolcetto and freisa with nebbiolo and barbera after the 2000 vintage and will now concentrate on just two varieties. Also, beginning with the 2001 vintage, they will age their barbera a full year longer (21 months vs. 9) - "the way the wines were made 30 years ago," according to Roberto Conterno, who added that 2001 was a good time to make this change as this vintage supports longer aging.The Conterno Barolos continue to spend a long time on their skins during the fermentation (a month or more for the Monfortino, a bit less for the Cascina Francia) and are aged exclusively in large old Slavonian ovals. The Cascina Francia is bottled during the fourth year after the vintage and the Monfortino during the seventh year. "Only the use of large barrels enables us to maintain the particular aromatic characteristics of each year," explains Conterno. "The weather conditions we have during July create the terpenes, the classic Barolo perfumes like rose petal and camphor, and we find these aromatic characteristics only after three or four years of aging the wines in larger casks. Certainly barriques give certain advantages but we think that they standardize the wines." Conterno told me he was most fond of '99 and '97 among his recent vintages, but he noted that '98 had a more classical balance.