1998 Barolo Villero

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."

Following my tasting of current and upcoming releases with the Mascarello family, Mauro Mascarello staged a vertical tasting of his great Barolo Monprivato, covering all of the great vintages back to 1970; I'll publish the results of this impressive vertical in an upcoming issue. Among Mascarello current wines, I was especially taken with the quality of his new Ca d'Morissio bottling, from Monprivato vines replanted in 1988 with a selected clone of michet. Thanks to the very low crop levels, I would never have guessed that the recent vintages of this wine (it has been made in '93, '95, '96 and '97) were from young vines. Interestingly, Mascarello prefers '97 and '96 for nebbiolo; he feels that '98 and '99, perhaps due to the larger crop levels, were less powerful and dense and therefore more successful for barbera and dolcetto.