When I visit the Willamette Valley, I bring my Dometic Cooler with me and store my wine in the car at 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I pulled these three bottles out at 12:30pm in my Neutron trailer at The Vintages “Resort” to prepare for dinner with a winemaker at their estate. Gnocchi rolled from potatoes picked from the garden. Ribeye steak from a local farm.
I poured myself just enough to get the wine below the neck and introduce some oxygen to the bottle over the next few hours. I recognized immediately these wines did not need preparation. It was rather shocking to me that all three had genuinely resolved their ripe tannins completely, and that the non-fruited aromatics were immediately fragrant, even at 50 degrees in stemless hotel “glassware”. Eleven year old Barolo, huh.
What I remember between them from tasting that first pour freshly popped in the trailer; on the nose, the Mascarello Monprivato presented much more truffle complexity, the Bartolo Mascarello showed a bit more tar or abrasion, and the Burlotto Cannubi would have been the cleanest, but most powerful structurally. As for dinner, far fewer tasting notes as we enjoyed a simple evening, but it’s fair to note we both agreed the Bartolo Mascarello won the Wine of the Night. All three were stunning bottles.
by EolaAmityHills
1 Comment
the alien and skeleton figures judging three legendary barolos is the most accurate wine tasting setup i’ve ever seen