Community Tasting Note

• Robmcl920 Likes this wine: 97 points

  September 10, 2019 - The 2013 Rabaja is an epic wine. It will require many years to be at its best, but the quality of the wine is already immediately evident on the palate. On opening, the Rabaja is very closed on the nose, and with time in the glass, only a muted expression of dark cherries and licorice emerges. Upon tasting, it is an entirely different story. An array of black fruit, licorice, balsamic, and tobacco sweep across the palate. The fruit is so rich so as to entirely cover the tannins, making the wine quite elegant and shockingly drinkable at this stage. Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay to the 2013 Rabaja is that the wine I recalled when drinking it was the 2010 Rinaldi Brunate. I don’t think this quite rises to that level, but there is no doubt this is also a blockbuster in the making.

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6 Comments

• JEP007 commented:

  9/10/19, 7:13 PM - Great review! Hard to imagine, but wonder if the 2016s will be even better than 13 or 08.

• Robmcl920 commented:

  9/10/19, 7:39 PM - Thanks. I can’t say for sure having not tasted the 16 Riservas, but the 16 normale is amazing in my opinion. Totally different than this Rabaja of course, much lighter red fruit, but I thought it was insane how good it was for the base wine. I look forward to tasting the Riservas. Anyway, so much good wine being made and offered at reasonable prices.

• pods commented:

  9/23/20, 5:51 PM - Thank you for sharing. Appreciate your insights. What are your thoughts on Produttori Asili riserva? And how do you think Produttori stacks up against gaja if we took out price as a factor?

• Robmcl920 commented:

  9/23/20, 6:47 PM - Hi pods - you know I actually haven't had the 2013 Produttori Asili. I think I've now tasted all the '13s except the Asili, and I think for me the Rabaja is clearly the best of the wines I've tasted, followed by the Montefico and Ovello.
  
  I did attend a tasting last year of Asili vs. Rabaja over many vintages. I didn't take detailed notes but in general the best wines of the tasting, for my taste, were the Rabaja, especially the '78 and '96. I personally really like the dark fruit & balsamic character that often appears in the Rabaja and found it more intriguing than the Asili in most vintages in that tasting. It may come down mostly to personal preference about the fruit character that you prefer in Nebbiolo.
  
  As for Produttori vs. Gaja - unfortunately I can't be helpful there. I've only had Gaja a few times and never side by side. I will say in my view this 2013 Rabaja would hold its own with some of the best Barolo & Barbaresco I've tasted, Bartolo Mascarello, Giuseppe Rinaldi, etc that cost much more (to be clear, this is only true IMO in the most recent vintages i.e. 2013, 2014). So I bet it's pretty competitive in terms of quality, obviously a bit more traditional in style than Gaja historically.

• pods commented:

  9/23/20, 8:20 PM - Thank you again for taking the time to share!

• JEP007 commented:

  9/24/20, 5:50 AM - Popped a 16' Produttori normale last week and have nursed it slowly over the last several days. It was fantastic, and for $35, just awesome QPR. I can only imagine the 16' riservas are going to be killer and probably overshadow the good/great vintages such as 14' and 15'. Lots of hype going on and I'm falling into it, lol.

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