Notes from a Piemonte tasting dinner.
1985 Dom Perignon – great way to start the evening, with a lovely complex toasty bubbly that seemed to send flavour in consecutive waves.
1997 Ceretto Asij Barbaresco – nice way to start with a garnet coloured wine showing a lovely perfumed nose with floral, anise and herbal elements, fairly mature now and smooth on palate. If you have this one, get tucked in as it won’t be getting any better.
1990 Parusso Bussia Barolo – right into an other mature wine, darker in colour with a hint of vinyl in the nose as well as good fruit and a fair bit of remaining soft tannin on palate. I don’t have this one in the cellar, but if whoever brought this has another, I do have the 1990 Mariondino that would be fun to compare.
1996 Parusso Piccol Vigne – another good choice in the order of things as this wine was also showing well, with more vinyl in the nose, a tad less fruit than the 1990 and about the same tannin. It opened up nicely with time in the glass and is probably hitting a nice drinking plateau now.
1997 Ceretto Zonchera – warm spicy nose featuring anise, nice development, soft tannins, ready to roll.
1997 Revello Vigna Conca – dried cherries in this nose, the wine still slightly tight, but it opened with time in the glass. Showed excellent depth, very smooth and supple, probably just starting to hit prime drinking time now.
1995 Giacosa Gallina - corked
1990 Marcarini La Serra – sadly, this wine was slightly corked, but nonetheless it showed an otherwise smooth mature tarry nose and decent on palate – but we’ll never know how badly it had been affected by the cork taint.
1997 Marcarini La Serra – fun to do a mini-vertical. Hard tannins, but showing promise with a really nice nose, long and intense. This is an old style Barolo and needs many years to reach peak.
1998 Rainoldi Valtellina – a back up bottle from the north of Italy where Nebbiolo does some very different (and interesting) things. Lighter colour, good nose with sweet fruit, lighter in body and still tannic, this should start drinking well in a couple of years, or now with extended airing.
1999 Prod. del Barbaresco Montestefano – one of my favourite Barbaresco producers. The nose was sweet and slightly raisined, and the wine had good stuffing, soft tannin and decent length. A good wine, but maybe not up to the best this producer can do.
1995 Cappellano Otin Fioria Franco – a traditional style wine with a great licorice and tar nose, smooth on palate, if a tad hot, with very good length. Rustic and lovely – a classic Barolo.
1999 Prunotto Bussia – a pretty nose of roses and vanilla, but I felt that it fell a tad flat in midpalate. Others didn’t agree, so perhaps they are right and I am not.
All in all an enjoyable dinner mating interesting food with very interesting wines.
