2006 Barolo Cannubi Boschis

It's always fascinating to taste at Sandrone, as the estate' re-releases provide a great opportunity to see the slight stylistic evolutions that have taken place over the years. To be sure, today's wines are fresher and more vibrant, and yet they retain that textural lushness that has made these wines so coveted. Luciano Sandrone describes 2016 as a year with slightly elevated yields and a long, protracted harvest. As for the wines, well, they are truly special.

Luciano Sandrone is making some of his finest wines in what has been a long and extraordinary career full of successes. That in and of itself is a testament to Sandrone family’s relentless quest to improve. Of the Piedmont wineries that are still in their first generation, those that started in or around the 1980s, Luciano Sandrone is arguably the only estate that has joined the small group of properties, all of them multi-generational, whose wines are widely recognized as icons and collectibles.

Sandrone fans will note several developments with the 2013 Barolos. To start, the Sandrone family has decided to rename their Barolo Cannubi Boschis, the flagship wine, after Luciano Sandrone's grandchildren, Alessia and Stefano. The loss of a historic brand - one that has contributed so much to the history of Piedmont, Italy and the world of fine wine - is incalculable. Luciano Sandrone made the reputation of Cannubi Boschis, just like Henri Jayer made the reputation of Cros Parantoux. When a highly respected producer backs out of using a historic place name, the message that sends - rightly or wrongly - is that the producer's brand and ego are more important than that of the land. Could you imagine a grower in Burgundy deciding not to bottle their Grand Cru Musigny or Bonnes-Mares with the vineyard name? Exactly. Cannubi, and what its true boundaries should be, have been the subject of heated debate for many years. That discussion, which has often been vitriolic and heated, has unfortunately left many parties feeling bitter. Perhaps irreparably. The Sandrones recently acquired a small parcel in Cannubi proper (not Cannubi Boschis). The only way that fruit could go into this wine would have been to rename Cannubi Boschis as Cannubi, and perhaps the Sandrones did not want to do that for the sake of consistency, given that they have been among the fiercest advocates of recognizing the subdivisions within Cannubi by their proper name and not the broader Cannubi name for the contiguous parcels. So, the Barolo Cannubi Boschis becomes Barolo Aleste. Although surely not the intent today, this decision also opens the door for future generations to make Barolo Aleste from fruit anywhere in Barolo. Going forward, there is no limit on production, nor nothing at all to worry about if hail, frost or inclement weather were to damage the fruit that has historically gone into this wine. That gorgeous Sandrone Barolo, the bottle with the little blue box on the label, goes from being a wine of place to potentially a wine from anywhere.

On a more positive note, the Sandrones have a fabulous new Barolo Riserva that debuts in 2013 and that is described in more detail in the accompanying reviews. But all of this creates a very realistic scenario in which the Le Vigne (which has improved dramatically over time and now regularly challenges or surpasses Cannubi Boschis), and the new Riserva become the flagships, while Aleste moves to the background. The Sandrones have their motivations for changing the name of their flagship wine, which probably no one outside the family will ever understand. And their decision must be respected. But what I see is an unnecessary destruction of value and heritage. As for the wines, well, they are truly spectacular. With a capital S.

My visit last year with Luciano and Luca Sandrone was illuminating, as I had an opportunity to taste verticals of both of the estate's Barolos spanning vintages 2005 through 2009, culminating with exceptional bottles of the 1990s, which I report on in this site's What About Now feature. Sandrone's 2006 Barolos are among the unqualified successes of the 2006 harvest. The wines show more richness and density than the 2005s, but less exuberance than the 2007s, in a focused, driven style I find quite attractive.

Sandrone was one of the only vintners who told me he made use of the 2005 Barolo fruit harvested after the early-October rain. "The year brought a classic climate and our weather in October was actually typical, with rain in the middle of the harvest," he told me. "But we picked immediately after the rain, before we got rot, and we found that the fruit was riper. Actually, September and October were like two completely different harvests. The half of our crop that was picked after the rain was in the village of Monforte [including most of the fruit that goes into the Barolo Le Vigne bottling], but the grapes stayed healthy due to the work we had done in the vines. The 2005s remind me of old-style Barolos: they will reveal themselves very slowly." Sandrone describes 2006 as elegant and stylish-"cleaner than 2005 but sweeter too." He was eager to show off his very dense 2007 Barolos, and they were indeed impressive. "It's a warm style of wine from a low crop level," he explained. "Not as classic as usual but with normal acidity and high levels of dry extract."