Cavallotto Dinner

Acquerello, San Francisco
Tasted Thursday, January 25, 2024 by drwine2001 with 118 views

Introduction

This was a wonderful opportunity to taste through a selection of wines, including all 3 bottlings of 2011 Barolo, with Alfio Cavallotto who was visiting San Francisco. The Barolos were all double decanted 3 to 4 hours before being served.

Flight 1 (8 Notes)

  • 2021 Cavallotto Dolcetto d'Alba Vigna Scot

    Italy, Piedmont, Alba, Dolcetto d'Alba

    Ruby. Herbs and anise. Medium body. Dry black cherry and mint with good minerality and excellent acidity. Very good, serious Dolcetto.

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  • 2022 Cavallotto Piemonte Pinot Nero Pinner

    Italy, Piedmont, Piemonte DOC

    A blanc de Pinot Noir. Medium yellow, no pink. Medium weight, lanolin feel. Really nice texture for having been raised in stainless steel. Melon and pineapple, good acidity, and a bit of nice cyanic bitterness at the end.

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  • 2019 Cavallotto Barolo Bricco Boschis

    Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo

    Ruby. Aromas of menthol and black cherry. Elegant medium weight. Savory mix of tobacco and licorice more than fruit. Very good inner mouth perfume. Late citrus, bitter chocolate, fine tannins, and quite mineral. Excellent, understated, classic wine for the intermediate term.

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  • 2011 Cavallotto Barolo Bricco Boschis

    Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo

    Dark ruby, much more saturated than the 2019. Heady nose with some VA and a strong whiff of wintergreen. Bigger, lusher, and lower acidity than the younger wine. Rich, sweeter palate, very chocolatey but more cherry pit as well. Lots of soil and some harshness from the alcohol on the finish. Too much for me and wanting more balance and restraint for all of its power.

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  • 2011 Cavallotto Barolo Riserva Bricco Boschis Vigna San Giuseppe

    Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo

    Very deep color. This smelled more like Amarone than Barolo to me, and it also had a top note of stalky greenness and some VA as well. Round, medium+ weight with real chocolatey richness of dark fruit. Very good acidity and minerality. It loosened and became sweeter in the glass. Drier, tannic finish. Somewhat more nimble than the 2011 Bricco Boschis tasted before it, but still a little too much heft.

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  • 2008 Cavallotto Barolo Riserva Bricco Boschis Vigna San Giuseppe

    Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo

    Good youthful light ruby without fading. A pretty mixed up nose of funk, fennel, VA, and perhaps a touch of oxidation-not very pleasing. Lovely medium weight with a strong foundation of soil. Generally cooler in style. Subtle black cherry, and once again a bitter chocolate note. Surprisingly, some prune comes out later. More complex and lacy than the 2011 but still disappointing after a beautiful, harmonious bottle of this last year.

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  • 2015 Cavallotto Barolo Riserva Vignolo

    Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo

    Medium ruby. Complex, perfumed, brambly scents. Some sweet/tart interplay of fruit and acidity early, but then it shifts toward being a terroir wine with long, earthy notes, and tobacco leaf toward the finish. This is the most soil-driven wine of the evening with a dry, tannic finish. Somewhat foursquare but very interesting and enjoyable at this young age. Good potential for further development.

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  • 2011 Cavallotto Barolo Riserva Vignolo

    Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo

    Dark ruby like all three of the 2011's. More complex aromatics with more high toned green notes than the other 2 wines from this year-quite fragrant. Sweet, rich, and chocolatey with tangy red fruit, relatively lively for such a ripe wine. Earthy, mineral vein, coffee and a whiff of prune toward the finish. Clearly my favorite of the 2011's and excellent aging potential, but this will never be anywhere near a delicate, discrete Nebbiolo.

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Closing

In all honesty, while some of the wines were very good, none of them possessed the aromatic or textural magic of really great Barolo. The 2011's in particular seemed unnaturally dark and clumsy for Nebbiolo. The 2019 Bricco Boschis was the first 2019 Barolo I've tasted and it showed very well. If it is indicative of the style of the vintage, we can look forward to medium weight, classic wines that are not overly bound up by their structure.

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