2014 Barolo at Festa dal Barolo
Del Posto, NYC
Tasted February 2, 2019 by cct with 412 views
Introduction
In a weird sense, this was the Festa morning tasting I most wanted to experience. It's easy to love the wines of a great young vintage like 2010 or 2013. This was a different game altogether. This was gong to be like watching your favorite athletes struggle, and mostly overcome a tremendous challenger. This was watching sweat equity, sacrifice, and fortune at work. I think this year is the year where you can get a better view into the fickle nature of Mother Nature and the possibility of overcoming great difficulty.
Flight 1 (15 notes)
So here we go:
Cooler fruit profile with pretty florals, spice, tar, and balsam on the nose. Nice cooler toned Serralunga perfume. On the palate higher than average acid sense, somewhat linear and focused, but lacking the breadth of the Massolino. Different in texture and weight not better or worse. It's mid weighted and graceful. The tannins do finish a bit green, but otherwise quite good.
Richer and riper than the Azelia. More breadth and extraction, with balsamic notes, orange liqueur, redder fruited and perfumed. There's almost an Amaro like perfume to it, along with some savory undertones.. More overt and richly textured compared to the Azelia, but with this richness it comes across as mid weighted and has good balance.
Wood spice, roses, and tar on the nose. There is good fruit underneath. On the palate, gripping tannins that seem like green pips. A firm acidic backbone. The parts seem to be there, but not together, and seems to lack cohesion. Maybe it will come together.
Spice and floral driven nose. Pretty and perfumed. The wood is still pretty evident for me. Red fruited, midweighted with lovely fruit and lovely acid lift. I like this more than usual, and the wood seems to be handled with a gentle hand.
Meaty and savory with nettles, licorice, dark fruit, and a little leather on the nose. On the palate, a cooler fruit profile, chewy tannins, a little coarse and lacking depth. A producer I love and this year was a tough one.
Cooler fruit, stems, black licorice and tar on the nose. Savory more than fruit on the palate, with tar, more licorice, dill, and chewy tannins. It has some textural richness added by the stems, but just doesn't seem to pull it off. It finishes with an odd cigarette ash and firm chewy tannins.
Coller fruit profile, with pretty florals. Violets (or is that suggestion), tar, anise, and darker cooler nebbiolo fruit. Gripping tannins that seem a touch green. That said, this has a great sense of freshness minerality and depth. It has precision and clarity. With time, it grows and gains a sense of sap and becomes more elegant. A success. 94
A cooler than average fruit profile for the bottling, with roses, violets, pure and deep, yet graceful fruit, and tar. Midweighted on the palate, less powerful than usual, but maintaining lovely balance. It grows some savory notes with time. A graceful, mid weighted, elegant rendition of this wine. Outstanding for the vintage.
The darkest in color wine of the tasting. Rose, mushroom, cured meats, and a saline slant to it. Red fruited with broad palate impact, good tension, but with unripe gripping green tannins and spice that overwhelms the rest of the wine for me. With time, the perfume did grow and gains some cherry cough drop notes and more roses. I did not love this wine, but that is personal preference and not scored due to that.
A cooler profiled fruti, nettles, licorice, tar, balsam, and violets on the nose. A structured, beautifully proportioned full scaled wine of terrific balance and presence. A harmonious wine that combines power, grace and nuance. The most impressive 2014 of the day. Terrific.
Cooler darker profiled fruit, florals and a sense of mineralogy not he nose. Power and grace, with great inner mouth perfume. This has structure, depth and balance. This is one of the most cohesive wines of the tasting for me. Finishes with gripping ripe tannins. A very solid 2014. I think Valter is one of the most under appreciated great winemakers in the Langhe and this did nothing to change my mind. Well done!
Lovely perfume, redder fruited nebbiolo florals and tar. mid weighted, but with excellent sap. Red licorice, and more cherry fruit on the palate. Graceful, with the tannins prominent but integrated. Elegant.
Raspberry, stems, olive tapenade and cooler herbal undertones on the nose. A singular nose. There is sap and a suppleness to the tannins, with great texture, lift and freshness. Cooling herbal basil undertones on the back end add freshness. A harmonious, singular wine that is showing beautifully in an understated cohesive mode.
A fantastic nose. Roses, olive, savory undertones. More red frutied nebbiolo with a savory slant. Powerful and deep with great sap and density, expansive on the palate with a richness coupled with freshness and lift. Everything comes together beautifully here. This is iron fist in a velvet glove stuff. Outstanding.
Great perfume. Roses, balsam, truffle, tar and violets. you could smell this all day. Fresh and eep with darker nebbiolo fruit. This drinks with the ease of mineral water and has a great purity to its fruit and finishes with fine tannins. It is deep and yet carries itself with a sense of ease and grace. Impressive, and this may sound weird, but it is almost too pure and clean for me, and I get less of an emotional response to it. Wonderful wine nonetheless. I could see people going ballistic over this and I would not blame them. It is beautiful.
Closing
For me this was one of the most interesting FdB morning tastings since my first Festa tasting '10. I had tasted most of these wines earlier the preceding May and many of them in botti prior to that. This tasting, I thought was really informative and gave a good deep dive into the wines, highlighting the strengths of a difficult vintage. I think it is human nature to try to simplify things into black and white, good vs bad vintage. Life is usually gray.
I think objectively there were few vintners who would look forward to another 2014. The best producers will often produce the best wines, and have the ability both manpower and financial ability to accept large drops in production to produce a wine of quality. In '14 most in this group of producers were down 30-40% in quantity. Rigorous work in the vineyards coupled with Draconian culling of fruit allowed these top producers to make some very good to outstanding wines, maybe a couple truly outstanding wines.
I certainly don't think that one can objectively call this a good or even average vintage; but again, that is simplifying things. What I can see is '14 being a testament to how hard work, good resources, and often good fortune of being missed by hail allows lemons to be made out of lemonade. At their best, these have a grace and fleeting weightlessness and beautiful balance, with lovely aromatics, usually in a more savory and cooler fruited mode. Roberto Conterno's Ceretta and Monfortino are truly outstanding wines, Burlotto, Cogno and Vajra were also really impressive, and while not at la Festa, I really thought what Maria Teresa accomplished in '14 was impressive but among these best producers, a handful of really great wines are made.
What I did love seeing is how much progress is being made at the top, and to some of my favorite producers really show how great they are at their craft, with a "proof in the pudding" type result. To me, that is the mark of a great winemakers, or or anyone who is mastering their art. They made some memorable wines in a difficult situation. That to me shows genius more than making great wine in 2010 or 2013. It also shows the fickle nature of weather. I think Brovia is among the absolute best producers, I think that '14 showed that even with amazing efforts and sacrifice, that sometimes, nature can be a mother.
I think that is a good thing to see what can be made in this pretty singular vintage, that 2 decades ago would likely have been disaster, in the best of hands. I am happy to have some of these wines in my cellar, and those wines are the wines from the producers I buy every year; but for the first time at la Festa, I am not reloading on anything, nor seeking out a new wine I want to buy. To reiterate, that is not mean to be disparage these wines, but to say that there are 5 or 6 wines of these that I think were as good as 30+ wines I could mention from a great vintage, and in my personal situation, I don't not feel like I need to branch out in any given vintage. I am excited to follow these wines over the next 2+ decades, and I bet some of them will surprise us with their grace, harmony and unique nature. Life is more interesting with variety and 2014 offers variety, something unique, interesting, and occasionally wonderful.
I guess to summarize, I think that some impressive results were accomplished by the most skilled winemakers in spite of being dealt a difficult hand. I took joy in watching these difficulties overcome by people whom I admire and am thankful to enjoy the literal fruits of their labor. It was an educational and enjoyable experience.
Thank you to the producers, Antonio and the Vinous crew for putting together a special event.