La Festa del Barolo Masterclass
The Pool, NYC
Tasted Sunday, February 4, 2024 by Robmcl920 with 138 views
Introduction
The La Festa Masterclass is always educational. This year, my personal opinion was that the consistency of quality was the highest it's been in the years I have attended (I also attended the masterclass for the 2014, 2017, and 2018 vintages). With the exception of the Conterno Fantino, where I am not a fan of the style, I would be happy to have each of the other 14 wines in my cellar. Obviously this is a curated set of the better wines, but producers like Castello di Verduno & Poderi Colla that may get less fanfare are producing awesome wines.
A few takeaways:
1. I find the '19s to be austere, tannic, classic wines that are a bit harder to taste at this point than many of the past few vintages. Roberto Conterno compared the '19s to '13s and that makes sense to me, as I find '13s to be very tight on average. The components are there - brilliant acidity, density of fruit, finesse in the tannins - but there are not many of these wines that I personally would want to drink a bottle of now for pleasure, and in general I like young Barolo. Of the wines at the tasting, I found the Massolino Margheria to be quite approachable and so aromatic, and the Poderi Colla Dardi Le Rose is also such a pretty, finessed wine you could totally drink now. In terms of what not to drink now, I found the Conterno Cerretta super tight, not giving much aromatically or on the palate, although the combination of textural depth + finesse in the tannins is impressive.
2. I have found a lot of young Barolo, including some of these '19s (the Massolino Margheria most of any at this tasting; Vietti '19s have a lot of these notes in my experience, too) to have somewhat exotic, citrus notes; orange peel is maybe a more common Barolo scent, but I am talking more about fresh citrus. There was a great question from the audience about why this seems to be the case more so today than in the past. Fabio from Burlotto answered that he believes it is due to the gentler handling and more protection of the grapes in the cellar than in the past, preserving these aromas that are found in Nebbiolo.
3. It was great to have Baudana represented at La Festa. I thought the Baudana Cerretta was excellent, one of the best of the '19s in my opinion, with beautiful sweetness to the fruit, which was dark in tone but still lifted.
4. The wine of the tasting for me was the 2015 Roagna Crichet Paje, which feels like cheating a bit since its 4 years older, but it was a haunting, mindblowing wine in my opinion. I don't drink much of any Crichet Paje to compare it to other years, but the '15 had this balance of sweet, red fruit and floral notes and savory, iron, smoke, and leather aromas that I really loved. It feels simultaneously like it is more aged than the other wines at the tasting (more than the actual 4 year age difference), but also has a sense of freshness. The aromatic intensity is wild.
Flight 1 - La Morra (3 Notes)
Flight 2 - Verduno (2 Notes)
Flight 3 - Castiglione Falletto (2 Notes)
Flight 5 - Monforte d'Alba (2 Notes)
The Elio Grasso was also tasted, but our bottle seemed off, likely a bit corked, as it showed a faint musty note and no aromatics. Based on the bottle I tasted last April at the winery, the Grasso would have been the wine of the flight and one of the better wines in the tasting.
2019 Trediberri Barolo Rocche dell'Annunziata 94 Points
Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo
The '19 Rocche is a very good wine in the making, a classic La Morra Barolo with excellent balance. The wine seems a bit tighter than my note from last spring, but showed similarly.
On the nose, I found ripe dark red fruit, fresh red floral tones, licorice, and orange peel. On the palate, it is medium in body and quite tannic and clenched, but the tannins are fine, and with age this will be a beautifully finessed wine.
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2019 Comm. G.B. Burlotto Barolo Cannubi 95 Points
Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo
The '19 Cannubi is an excellent wine. I am a big fan of the Burlotto Cannubi in recent vintages like '15 and '16, and this continues the trend. I find the Burlotto Cannubi to show the imprint of the producer more than the vineyard. While I think of Cannubi as a softer wine with ripe red fruit and floral tones, the Burlotto Cannubi is a concentrated, dark wine in need of significant time in the cellar.
On the nose, I found black cherry fruit, dark red florals, smoke, spices, and orange peel. The wine is very dark and mysterious, but with some lift from the orange peel. It is medium plus in body, beautifully concentrated, with plenty of tannin that's very fine grained. With time, it will be fantastic, but it's not the wine at Burlotto to drink young (the Monvigliero drinks much better at this age IMO).
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2019 Oddero Barolo Brunate 95 Points
Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo
The '19 Brunate was one of my favorite wines in the tasting. There's a bit of oak sweetness in the aromatics at first, but it blows off. I found menthol, black cherry, a hint of balsamic, sweet spices, and minerality. On the palate, it's medium in body w/ beautiful inner sweetness, again dark fruits and florals with a bit of balsamic / spices, very Brunate. High acidity, tons of energy. Tannins are very finely textured.
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