1968 Alfonso Scavino Barolo

Community Tasting Notes (1) Avg Score: 93 points

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View David Paris (dbp)'s profile
  • Report Issue

  5/18/2018 - David Paris (dbp) wrote: 93 Points

  Brought to El Gaucho, Portland to celebrate my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. 1968 was a sketchy year just about everywhere in the world, but supposedly an OK vintage in Barolo, certainly surrounded by many fine vintages. During a visit to Azelia in 2014, Lorenzo Scavino gave us a tour of the old cellar of wine and showed us wines with this label, made by his grandfather. Thereafter I began seeking them out, acquiring several vintages, and this is the first one I have consumed. The bottle was stood up for weeks in advance, and brought to the restaurant at 1pm. They opened it and let it breath at cellar temp until decanted around 7:30pm. As it was being decanted the color was absolutely perfect. The som said, "it's a bit pale," but for an old Barolo, I found it to be quite red toned, and of course see through as they always are. When I brought this to my nose I knew we were home free. You could smell high fruit tones from a foot away and that's what dominated the nose. Supremely elegant, refined, yet clearly aged red fruits. There were pleasing soil notes underlying that fruit. The nose was absolutely stunning, and nearly everything I seek in old Barolo. This transferred to the palate, where entry was bright, showing really nice red fruit tones, soil, and throughout the experience it was completely coating with refreshing acidity. Not much in the way of tannins, but the acid is sufficient to keep it all together. Finish shows some earthy notes and light lingering berries. Here you get a slight sensation of tannin, but it's mostly the acidic red fruit that lingers into the finish. This wine drank absolutely wonderfully for about 45 minutes in the glass, holding steady the whole time, before finally starting to head down hill at this point. I must say we nailed the opening/decant time perfectly on this bottle. This absolutely beat my expectations for how good it was going to be, and another example of how much I enjoy drinking finely aged Barolo. Score is at first pour.

  1 person found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Comments (3)

Professional reviews have copyrights and you can view them here for your personal use only as private content. To view pro reviews you must either subscribe to a pre-integrated publication or manually enter reviews below. Learn more.