Archive for the ‘Nebbiolo’ Category

Stefano Farina Barolo 2003

The recent lack of updates is due to some crazy hours at my firm of late. Hopefully things will calm down and the updates will again flow regularly! I had this a while ago, but didn’t write about it until now largely because it was a pretty disappointing wine. Mostly blackberry and black current on the nose, the herbaciousness was a bit green and the acidity tangy and unbalanced. Barolo rarely provides such simple and unpleasant flavours. Enjoyable enough for a $20 bottle, this is something to pass by at $45.

Good+
$45 at BCLDB

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Poderi Luigi Einaudi Barolo 1997

Barolo is wonderful wine, especially when given a few years to ruminate. When aged Barolo loses some of its big tannic muscle, but gains smoothness and elegance. This decade old Einaudi Barolo was made in a traditional style by one of my favourite Piemontese producers.

Integrated flavours of blackberry, earth, leaf, and tobacco seduced my palate. The nose was well structured, but perhaps a bit tight given the fantastic flavours to follow. A velvety smooth texture and true extension and length provided a full bodied experience. Surprisingly elegant, but not at all dull or mild. Well integrated acidity kept this enticing over an entire evening. A great example of this style of wine making.

Excellent
$90 at BCLDB

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Damilano Barolo 2001

It’s been a while since the last update, but that’s what happens during exam and paper season! I tasted this wine at the Vancouver International Wine Festival, but I had an opportunity to have a bottle recently and I thought it would be interesting to compare the experiences. It was an interesting experiment comparing impressions for the same wine of the same vintage but consumed merely weeks apart. It perhaps says something about our perceptions of taste, but I am planning a future more in-depth post about that so I’ll leave that idea as a nascent thought.

The nose on this was quite fungal upon first opening the bottle – also quite concentrated and a little earthy at the core. A few hints of blackberry on the nose expanded on the palate for a relatively fruity flavour for Barolo (strange given the last time I tasted this it was a lot more vegetal). The tannins were quite smooth and built the semi-tart fruit of the palate into a longish finish. I would recommend decanting this for several hours, though, since after a day in the fridge it really opened up and gained added depth and complexity. However, I didn’t love it as much as when I first tasted it – an interesting shift. I have one more bottle in my cellar and am excited to try that maybe in a year or more and see how it has changed (I have a hard time cellaring anything beyond a couple years).

Very Good+
$50 at BCLDB

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