Five days in Barolo: A visit at Giuseppe Rinaldi with Marta Rinaldi
Barolo
Tasted July 3, 2014 by David Paris (dbp) with 3,285 views
Introduction
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This is part of five days that my wife Natasha and I stayed in Monforte, primarily for the purpose of visiting some of my favorite Barolo producers. I was very pleased as our trip was coming together as we were able to arrange visits with all of my top choices. For further exploration, see also my write ups of visits at: Giacomo Conterno, Giuseppe Mascarello, Cappellano, Vietti, Comm. G.B. Burlotto, Bartolo Mascarello, and Azelia. Yes, it was an amazing five days...
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Another one of my favorite wineries. The estate is located just a few blocks down the road from the heart of the town of Barolo, abutting their Le Coste vineyard. We had been in communication with Marta, the daughter of Beppe Rinaldi, about our visit. Marta greeted us and walked us down into the cellar where production and aging takes place. Production here I believe is on the smaller end of our visits, around 45,000 bottles. The cellar is what you'd expect for these traditionalists... old wood fermenters and large (30+ HL) barrels. 
The barrels on the right were new this year and had just undergone a water and salt bath, which is always done before first fill to not only clean it out, but to help soften the wood tannins before first fill.
We got a brief tour of the facility where Marta shared the basics of their philosophy, but didn't reveal anything that's not already been published many times over. It was quite dark down there and at some point a couple of older gentlemen walked by who were working on installing some tile flooring. One of them said "Ciao." I swear it looked like Beppe himself, but I couldn't quite tell, and Marta certainly didn't stop to introduce us. Later I had asked if there'd be some formal transfer from her father to herself. She laughed... it seems these formal hand offs don't really take place. She says she's basically doing most of the work in the cellar these days, and her sister is doing most of the work in the vineyards.
After our tour, we went back to a central, kind of "living room." Marta invited us to taste her 2012 Nebbiolo and the two 2010 Barolos. We were basically just sitting in this room together as she poured the wines and talked. Due to the nature of the environment it didn't quite feel appropriate to sit there and write notes, so all I did was take some mental observations of each and a score, but no notes were written at the time.
Flight 1 (3 notes)
The wine was certainly very imposing, more so than the recent Brunate - Le Coste bottlings have seemed on release. The aromas are more masculine than the Tre Tine as you'd expect. Large and gritty tannins are dominant on the palate. This is built massively, but at current it's really not revealing much in the way of fruit or other nuance. Marta said the 2011 will be much easier to drink because it was so hot in august and September, with a harvest in September, 20 days before normal.
Flight 2 (1 note)
The room we were in had bottles of wine from all over Europe in it... lots of interesting stuff. I inquired about them and she said this is the wine that they drink. She mentioned she doesn't really buy any wine, she just trades with friends of hers. Those friends include Gouge (whom she has visited twice), Roumier (whom she says makes "the most elegant Pinot Noir in the world"), Dujac (who visits Rinaldi three times a year) from Burgundy, Soldera in Brunello, wines of Chateau Chalon, Chateauneuf-du-pape, etc. Lots of diversity, and lots of top names. I was surprised that she liked Chateauneuf-du-pape mixed in with those others, but she did acknowledge that they're getting a bit robust these days. When I mentioned I like old Bordeaux but don't like what's happening there now she agreed and says, "Well now they're going to sell everything to China." Indeed...
She also had a bunch of bottles with Bartolo Mascarello's hand draw labels, including one from 1971! I didn't even know he was doing them that long ago. They also had a large, perhaps 2 feet across, label drawing of his "No Barrique, No Berlusconi" label hanging on the wall:
We talked a little bit about her importer relationship. She's been with Vinifera in the USA since 1996 and apparently has no intention of changing. Vinifera's not really one of my favorite importers as their pricing seems higher than it should be and they give little room for the retail shops to make much money. From Marta's standpoint, she doesn't really want to deal with a slew of importers like some other Barolo producers do. She says, "Luckily we don't have to travel the world to sell our wines, we can focus on work." To that end, she likes having the single importer as it's just one shipment, one bill. It's easy, and she doesn't need to know anything about the US wine market, which she notes as quite different than in Italy. Totally makes sense from the winemaker's perspective. While we were there the shipment for the US was just loaded onto crates and was waiting to go out in a few weeks. She expects the 2010 Barolo to land in October or November of 2014.
Speaking of retailers in the US, I also asked her about Jon Rimmerman of Garagiste, who she knows well. She seems to really like him, which I do too. I mentioned to her that he often sells older vintages of their wine. She says, "Really??" I responded with, "Really?? That's a surprise? The offers led me to believe that he's buying the wines directly from you!" She said, "Noooo.... we don't ever sell older vintages. Anything we have is kept for us!" Very interesting. I guess when Rimmerman writes, "Finest provenance available... unmoved since release" that doesn't mean unmoved from the Cantina. Probably just some collector in Europe, or some such. Vinifera does have stocks of older vintages (stuff post '96, of course), so I suppose it could just be from their warehouse too. With the prices he's asking, I wouldn't doubt it. She also pointed out that any bottles you see in the US prior to 1996 were not official exports from the winery.
This wine had completed malo, and was scheduled to be racked tomorrow. It was very hefty in its presence, with almost a meaty aroma. Very intense, spicy, and tannic, with nice acid and some moderate complexity. The acid on the finish was fantastic. Probably around 89 for its current stage of development.
Closing
She also had a few of these great cork stools and chairs that a friend of hers makes in Italy. Unfortunately they aren't available in the US, because I'd love to have one! She said she could sneak one in the crate of wine she's shipping to the US for us, but since it's landing in New York that could still be a hassle getting it to us. 
As we were ramping down again the gentleman laying tile in the other part of the winery came into the room. Now in the better light I could tell that yes indeed, this is the man himself, Marta's father Beppe! I felt embarrassed that I didn't recognize him earlier. He asked Marta who we were, and then said "Arrivederci" to us and walked off. He unfortunately doesn't speak any English, so I felt a little uncomfortable trying to speak with him. Marta, on the other hand, speaks excellent English, which she says these days is really necessary in the global trade of Barolo. She didn't take any English courses in school (in school they teach French), but she had a private English tutor once a week, which is how she learned. 
Our visit here was a bit shorter than most on this trip, but it was very relaxed and we had some really fun, casual conversation with Marta (including her comments about wishing she could just have a pizza or hamburger to accompany these large Barolo tastings instead of the fancy $900 Piedmont inspired cuisines). As we were headed out we asked if the Museum in Barolo is worth attending. She said yes, and gave us some free passes! We went directly from Rinaldi to the museum... so is it worth attending? Well, I suppose, because it was free, but this place was totally bizarre. It was almost just a museum of oddity, not the interesting history lesson I thought it was going to be. Lots of weird exhibits and large rooms that it felt like they just had to fill the space in. I'll let some of the photos speak for it...
Oh, though I will say that the view from the balcony of the museum was quite breathtaking...
Follow the trail onto Vietti...