2000 Barolo Brunate

Giuseppe Rinaldi embodies all of the qualities of Piedmont's viticoltore culture, which is to say he is focused on his vineyards first and foremost. During Rinaldi's first trip to New York earlier this year he kept a room of over 100 people in rapt attention as he recounted his philosophy on wine and life. It was an unforgettable moment. When it comes to the wines, his are, in my opinion, the most traditional of the traditional wines of Piedmont. Legend has it that the magnums of Brunate/Le Coste are in fact made only from Brunate fruit. I have never been able to get a clear answer to that question. The bottom line is in top vintages the wines are fabulous. I buy as much of these wines as I can afford.

Rinaldi was trying desperately to finish a major cellar addition before the beginning of the 2004 harvest when I stopped by to taste. Rinaldi continues to make Barolo in thoroughly traditional fashion; the wines are normally tough in the early going but have a history of aging extremely well. Happily, the unprecedented run of warm vintages since the mid-'90s has resulted in numerous wines that are fuller and less austere than some past vintages here. I was quite taken with Rinaldi's young 2001s, which will not be bottled until next year. Rinaldi describes this vintage as an ideal year for nebbiolo:"Not too hot, and with gradual ripening; much better than a year in which the nebbiolo ripens too quickly. "The wines boast very good flesh to buffer their substantial nebbiolo tannins. Rinaldi has a single 2002 foudre from Le Coste fruit, which he may yet bottle as Barolo. This sample displayed an exotic dried-grape character and some botrytis notes; I thought I was drinking a dry port.

Rinaldi is a Barolo traditionalist, aggressively so. "I love severe Barolo," he told me in September, adding that, for him, the 1998 vintage was the next best year to '96 in that sense. "I don't like fruity Barolo," he went on. "I like the perfume of tar, the secondary and tertiary aromas that develop through long aging. Fruitiness is a characteristic of nebbiolo, not of Barolo. The most noble perfumes of Barolo come from aging in barrel and bottle, especially in bottle. Nebbiolo for Barolo needs slow ripening," Rinaldi added. "Cool September nights are best. It was too hot in 2000 to make Barolo with classic perfume." Rinaldi eschews barriques and many other modern techniques. "People who use technology to provoke the malolactic fermentation, those who add enzymes or de-acidify, ruin the ageworthiness of their wines," he asserts. "My private clients require a long-aging wine."