1993 Barolo Monprivato

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 Barolo Monprivato The Mascarello family impressive southwest-facing Monprivato vineyard in Castiglione Falletto has been producing some of the finest traditionally styled Barolos for the past 30 years. The Mascarello Monprivato, the first release of which was the 1970 (Mauro Mascarello took over from his father Giuseppe in 1967), offers a classic Barolo balance of structure and elegance. The young wines, with their sappy red fruit and floral perfume, frequently remind me of great Burgundies. A few vintages of the '90s are deceptively approachable in their youth, but history shows that the optimal drinking plane for the Barolo Monprivato is generally between 7 and 25 years after the harvest, with the more powerful vintages requiring a good 10 to 12 years to approach peak drinkability.The Mascarellos own just over six hectares of nebbiolo vines in Monprivato. (There is one other small owner of vines here, but the Mascarellos are the only producer to use the Monprivato name). The well-drained Monprivato hillside, which the late Renato Ratti ranked in the top category in his famous 1990 map of Barolo vineyards, lies at an altitude of about 280 meters and consists of chalk and clay marl. Mauro Mascarello, who looks younger than his 64 years, is clearly in love with this special site. From the mid-'80s through the mid-'90s he carried out an extensive improvement project, the objective of which was to produce more structured and complex wines without sacrificing elegance. He began the work with a one-hectare parcel at the southwest end of the vineyard, pulling up the old michet and lampia vines in 1985 and replacing them with "superselections" of the same two clones in 1988 following the construction of a drainage system in the vineyard and an elaborate soil redistribution project. The wine labelled Ca d'Morissio (the '93, reviewed in Issue 93, was the first release) comes from these vines.In '92, Mascarello uprooted another two hectares planted to the rose clone, and replaced these vines in '96 with the superselections of michet and lampia. The rose, Mascarello explains, contributes elegance and perfume, but offers little in the way of color or structure. Thus, beginning with the '93 vintage, the Monprivato bottling includes no rose.Over the same period, Mascarello has taken a number of steps in the vineyard and at harvest to improve fruit quality, including short pruning, green harvesting and stricter selection at the time of the harvest. Mascarello practices a traditional long but soft maceration, pumping over the must but not punching down the cap, in order to extract maximum varietal character from his nebbiolo fruit. Prior to 1995, vinification took place in cement vats, but since then it has occurred in temperature-controlled stainless steel. The wine is then aged in Slavonian ovals of 20 to 90 hectoliters. Resisting the trend toward earlier bottling and sale of Barolo, Mascarello continues to bottle the Monprivato between three and a half and four years after the harvest (the '97 was scheduled to be bottled in September.)I tasted the following series of vintages with the Mascarello family last fall at their home and winery in the town of Monchiero, located several miles to the southwest of Castiglione Falletto, along the Tanaro River. (Mauro's son Giuseppe-actually the third Giuseppe, including the original founder of the estate-has worked with his father since 1994.)