2004 Barolo Cerequio

Roberto and Davide Voerzio's 2004 Barolos are quite attractive, although they appear to be aging faster than many wines in this vintage. With only a few exceptions, these are Barolos that need to be enjoyed within the next 5-10 years, give or take.

There are a few visits in Piedmont that literally give me goosebumps. Roberto Voerzio is one of those. 2004 is a rare vintage in which the ultra-perfectionist Voerzio produced all seven of his single-vineyard Barolos. I have been following these magnificent wines for three years and it is a joy to taste them now that they are in bottle. The wines are just as spectacular now as they have been in my prior tastings. As it turns out I had the rare opportunity to taste the entire line up on two different days within the course of a week and the wines were consistently brilliant. Voerzio also bottled a limited number of magnums and double magnums of many of his 2004 Barolos which will be rare treasures for those who can find and afford them. When I stopped by the estate in November pretty much the only open question was the optimal order in which to taste the wines. Voerzio, very much a vigneron at heart, wanted to present the wines in the order the fruit was harvested. I opted for a more Burgundian approach of tasting the wines according my personal rank of the importance of his vineyards. Simply put, this is an extraordinary set of wines from Roberto Voerzio.

I tasted here with assistant Cesare Bussolo, who was happy to show me the estate's 2003 Barolos but only gave me a taste of the young 2004s, which had been bottled in August. He was also unable to find a bottle of the 2003 Barolo Capalot, which will be released in 2008. But I did see the 2001, and it was a stunner. I ran into Voerzio afterwards in the village, his arm in a sling, having broken his shoulder in a fall. Voerzio clearly considers 2004 one of his greatest years: as is usually the case here, owing to very low crop levels and early ripeness, he picked earlier than most of his neighbors. But, again, he told me he thought the wines were still shocked from the recent bottling and not ready to be evaluated. Nebbiolo here gets at least three weeks of cuvaison in vertical stainless steel tanks, with a short pumpover three times a day and some manual pigeage toward the end.