1961 Fontanafredda Barolo

Community Tasting Notes (42) Avg Score: 91.3 points

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  11/17/2022 - jerhardt wrote:

  '55/'61/'67 plus '61 Fontanafreda poured single blind. The stylistic consistency of the Mascarellos was amazing, from the pale, nearly translucent color down the the way the sediment was formed in large sheets. All of the wines showed propersly and for the most part were delicious. The '67 was the least impressive and clearly on the backside of maturity. Not madeirized, but it had a crystalline candied sweetness, almost like a tawny port. Interesting, but not up to the standard of the others, which were all impressive in their own way. The '61 drank the biggest and youngest (in a relative sense), but still ephemeral and elegant. The '55 was consistent with prior bottles; elegant, complex, and very alive for a 60+ year old wine. The Fontanafreda split the difference between the two, and was a massive over-performer. Three fantastic wines that were a treat to drink.

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  8/5/2022 - Sagan99 Likes this wine: 90 Points

  Drinking my age with this one! '61 was a great year, and this experience was great 61 years later!
  Drinking this wine at it's peak, is at least a decade or two past prime. But, I needed a wine to confirm long term storage conditions, and thus I wanted to test this wine, to see if it could make my 61 birthday.
  Looks like we made it!
  
  The cork was totally intact, and only bottle side 50% of it wet. No remnants of any kind of debris or decay. Fabulous! Though, here in Alberta, humidity is about perfect for storage. About 70%
  
  Nebiollo
  13.5 %abv when bottled
  
  At 3 hours - Wow! What changes!
  The wine remains as at opening,(below) with some remarkable changes !
  The wine was clear with pale intensity. But the brightness of the garnet had " popped. It was much more intense red, within the tawny rim, which had shrunk ever so slightly.
  Nose - now, red berries could be discerned, however faintly, with secondary and tertiary notes mentioned earlier.
  Palate - similarly, in the palate there was a restoration of sorts in the primary red fruits, plums, berries, but only vaguely. The tertiary remained.The tannins showed themselves more, giving me a thought that this wine has maybe a few more years in it's agedness.
  
  Conclusions- this wines best years are behind it.... And those years were more than a decade ago! Likely more.
  
  But, this was an interesting experiment to see what can happen to a a certain grape"s juice when cellared properly and patience maintained.
  
  It also shows that, patience in collecting wine, leads to corks being popped later than it should have been.
  And, being a newbie to this CellerTracker community will reduce the opportunities for that to happen.
  
  This time, it was purposeful. Others in my past, was neglect and pride of knowing more. It's been an expensive mistake, and not in a financial sense, but in a sense of missing out on drinking some of the world's greatest wines!
  
  The lesson... Pop the cork, in a reasonable and measured time, before it's too late.
  
  At opening-
  Intensity is pale with a garnet centre and tawny rim+.
  Nose is light, earthiness, dried fruit, wet leaves, with a hint of caramel, milk chocolate and licorice.
  Palate aligns with the nose, showing aged fruit, nothing primary at this age.
  Dry. High tangy acid, medium tannin, medium alcohol, medium/full body, 30+ second finish
  
  Very good quality for a 61 year old wine, though it's drinking window is a furlong or ten over due!
  
  But, there's still tannins resolving, and alcohol, but also a little reduction or oxidation as well.
  
  It's hard to give this an overall grade when I've never had this experience before.
  But, I guess that in itself is what this is all about.
  So, I'll give it a 90, though I did a tasting of far better, " in there moment" wines last night.
  
  *** This 90 points reflects the fact that this can still be consumed after 61 years! It's remarkable.
  (But, if I were to rate the wine as is, with the flaws I've levered on the wine, it should be higher.
  If I taste it now, with how it actually tastes, with all it's flaws, it would be lower.)
  
  
  PS- Drink the Rainbow!
  PSS- with this sample, the Rainbow ends at some point. So test...and drink often!
  Pop the cork!

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  6/19/2022 - rocknroller wrote: 97 Points

  Medium red color with a 10mm bricked margin. PNP, drank a glass plus over an hour plus. Revelatory, stunning, lightning in a bottle. Wow, what a perfume; watching this evolve in the glass was sheer joy. The purity of the red berry fruit is staggering, gorgeous bright strawberry, fine leather, iron, blood, fine tobacco, rose petals. The palate is so harmonious and elegant, medium bodied, wild strawberry, rose water, red cherry, leather, dried spices, still fresh with tangy acids and such satiny soft tannins. This was probably the best Barolo I've experienced; an unexpected treat and a birth year bottle for several of us. Brought the last sips home for my wife to finish and it was still singing. Good to see this aging so wonderfully at 60 plus years...there are no great wines, only great bottles and this was surely one.

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  6/15/2022 - chablis28 wrote: 95 Points

  This put an exclamation point on a lovely evening outside at Martina in Minneapolis! I tried to research this wine a bit more and can't find any details on it. The label is in mint condition and nothing about the btl itself screams 61yrs of resting in a cellar. That is, except the depth & range of flavors & aromas here. The wine's color is still a near release deep, almost opaque, ruby vs. the more typical translucent crimson rose' color of most Barolos of this age? It would be fun to know more about how these btls are produced, stored & packaged. I didn't see its cork so I don't know if was a crumbly cigar like stub typical of very old btls or a recently corked wine? That all aside this is a wonderful Barolo by any measure and terrific value to boot. 95+

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  5/1/2022 - HotelHarrington Likes this wine:

  Very funky on the nose. Very tertiary. After some time in glass, the funk blew off a bit and revealed some more fruit character that was still hanging around. But ultimately I think this wine’s best years are behind it.

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