2003 Barolo Cannubi Boschis

Luciano Sandrone waited as long as he could to get full ripeness in 2003. In this vintage, Le Vigne, which is made from a blend of sites, has a distinct advantage over the Cannubi Boschis, where the prominent tannins suggest the the fruit did not reach full phenolic maturity. Both wines have stood the test of time, though, which is as much as one could hope for in this vintage.

This wine was tasted over dinner at Ai Fiori, New York.

Since finishing construction of his new temperature-controlled winemaking facility in 1999, Sandrone has held back about 10% of his Barolo production for later release eight to ten years after the vintage, and in the future that percentage may go up to 30%. "Our wines shouldn't be sold, or consumed, too young," he told me. He's also varying his prices to reflect vintage quality for all of his wines except dolcetto-"an idea I stole from the French winemakers. " Not surprisingly, my visit to Sandrone was one of the highlights of my September tour. Sandrone describes 2004 as "one of our greatest vintages-there's almost nothing to say about it. It's a great year with a lot of structure and elegance. " Incidentally, Sandrone describes 2005 as a more classic vintage than 2006. "We got a good long season without extreme heat, and the day-night temperature variation gave us firm tannins that are not hard. " Sandrone leaves his Barolos on their malolactic lees until the summer after the harvest, doing some batonnage, a technique he says he picked up from a visit to Burgundy.

Luciano Sandrone is one of the leading lights in Piedmont. No grower has managed to so brilliantly reconcile modern and traditional approaches in making wines that are soft, supple and approachable when young, but also capable of aging beautifully. I have been following Sandrone's 2003 Barolos since just after the harvest. Over the last few years they have developed remarkably, and today are among the most successful Barolos of the vintage, particularly for the softness of their tannins, something which few producers were able to achieve. Both the Cannubi Bosch is and Le Vigne were perfectly fresh and intact when I re-tasted them after 48 hours had passed. “Clearly 2003 was a challenging vintage. We used less of the fruit from our warmer microclimates for Le Vigne, although obviously we didn't have that luxury with Cannubi Bosch is. In a sense it is a return to the past in that multi-commune Barolos had an advantage over single-vineyard wines. We did everything we could to maintain as much freshness as possible in the wines. We fermented using lower temperatures and bottled earlier than normal.”