2007 Barolo Cannubi Boschis

Sandrone compares 2009 to 1999: "Everything is in there and it's all in the right place," he told me. "But it's too early to talk about complexity." Sandrone views 2008 as a classic vintage from a long, cool season and a late harvest. "We will need time to understand and to drink these wines. The '07s are much easier to drink now; they're rounder, fatter and sweeter." Good news to Barolo lovers: Sandrone bought 1.3 hectares of vines in Baudana (in Serralunga) in May; he'll use 60% of the fruit in 2011 and will replant the rest of the vines. He has also rented some land in Villero, which will go into a new bottling in the 2011 vintage. In addition to Sandrone's library release of Barolo eight years after the vintage, there is now a nebbiolo from Roero released six years later. Sandrone used 20% to 25% new oak for his Barolos in 2007 and 2008, including some barriques from Stephane Chassin, who supplies barrels to such Burgundy stars as Mounir Saoume (Lucien Lemoine) and Olivier Bernstein. Sandrone, needless to say, is a long-time Burgundy lover.

Luciano Sandrone's wines have never been more elegant than they are today. The French oak is increasingly well balanced, and the at times excessive heaviness of some prior vintages is long gone. Simply put, Luciano Sandrone is at the top of his game. Never one to be satisfied, this year Sandrone showed me a number of experimental wines, including a barrel sample of 2009 Cannubi Boschis vinified with 100% stems, an approach that is virtually unheard of in Piedmont. Although this wine will ultimately be blended into the Cannubi Boschis, the all- stems Barolo was huge, explosive and totally compelling. Sandrone fans have much to look forward to, as the 2008s and 2009s appear quite promising at this admittedly early stage. As for the 2007s, they are off the charts.

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."