1986 Barolo Riserva Vigna Rionda

Franco and Roberto Massolino put together a remarkable tasting when I visited their small estate in Serralunga earlier this year. Massolino makes a number of outstanding wines but their flagship Barolo Riserva Vigna Rionda is particularly noteworthy. All 14 vintages of the Rionda were represented, including the legendary Barolo vintages of the last 20 years – 1982, 1985, 1989 and 1990 – as well as the more recent wines from the 1990s. As this tasting demonstrated, Massolino's Vigna Rionda is capable of developing extraordinary complexity in bottle. With the exception of the warmest, most precocious years, it is a wine that starts coming into its own around age ten, but that really blossoms between ages 15-20. Even with extended bottle age, it remains a classically structured Barolo with a firm tannic spine. One of the most fascinating aspects of a tasting like this is that provenance is completely removed from the equation. Because the bottles had never been moved, almost all the wines came across as youthful and fresh. The gently-sloping Vigna Rionda, which can be seen from the Massolino winery, is one of Barolo's most iconic vineyards. It was Bruno Giacosa who first made the site famous with his towering Barolos of the 1970s and 1980s. Massolino owns two adjacent plots in Vigna Rionda. The first piece of land was purchased in the early 1960s, the second in the mid-1980s. Like most other traditionally-minded estates, for many years Massolino produced a single Barolo made from a blend of their various holdings. The winery first bottled Vigna Rionda as a single-vineyard Barolo in 1982. The 1980s wines are very traditional in style and are also quite representative of their respective vintages. The 1990s have brought more elegance and finesse to the wines, but without sacrificing the house style.