1927 Giacomo Conterno Barolo Riserva

Community Tasting Notes (1)

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  12/13/2020 - lowereastscott Likes this wine:

  Purchased at a charity auction in 2016. Bottle came from Chambers St. Wines in NYC, who presumably bought an old Italian cellar, but I have no provenance information.
  
  Fill was insanely high for a 93-year-old wine. The cork had been covered with what looked like black wax, but it also had been mostly rubbed off. I chipped away and then opened it with a Durand. The cork came out completely intact. I carefully decanted it off of the sediment and took a whiff...
  
  It was...just ok. It smelled like tar, but not in the good, mature red wine way -- more like an old crusty rooftop. The color was gorgeous, though, and I swirled it a bit and then left it alone.
  
  By the time we were ready to eat, it had been in the decanter about an hour or so. The wine was fully alive. Still showing dark red fruit. Super refreshing, indicating it must have been a high acid vintage. Not much tannin to speak of. Slight hint of sweetness that I get with a lot of old wines. The nose switched from unpleasant tar to something more like truffled salami. The finish was still quite long. If I had been served it blind, I would have guessed something from the sixties or seventies.
  
  This was, by far, the best experience I've had with any "old" wine (over, say 55 years old).

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