L. 2004, disgorged Jan. 20, 2016, 3 g/L dosage. 70% pinot noir, 30% chardonnay, mise en boteille May 19, 2005. From magnum. Impressively fresh stuff -- a vigorous mousse that dissipated somewhat quickly in the glass, but I really liked the freshness in this wine. Some tart apple and other orchard fruit and plenty of acid. A very good wine to whet the appetite.

Where are my balloon animals? Very reductive on the nose, with that distinct Dom aroma, and some nascent autolytic tones starting to develop as well. Very rich and densely textured, this is taut with acidity and drinks pretty convincingly now already, though I think it doesn't quite have the same concentration as the impressive 2008.

Been a while since I've crossed paths with a bottle of this -- it's not well represented here and the group I drink with doesn't tend to buy it. I expected a very autolytic champagne, which this was, though perhaps not to the same extent. Surprisingly not as ripe as I would have thought for the vintage either, in fact this has a lot more acidity than I might have expected. Very nice, but still a little more yeasty than I personally would want to drink regularly.

Not the most complex of champagnes, but I really like the balance here of all the intense acidity and tart 2007 fruit, with a modest chalky quality, and a rounded texture from the dosage. Not as complex as the best champagnes, this is a great wine for drinking now. I've never been a big fan of Ruinart, but I think this wine in this vintage is pretty damn good (love 2007 chardonnay).

Not just corked, but also suffering from excessive amounts of VA.

This bottle isn't anywhere as good as the others I've had in the past; there doesn't seem to be that herbal, green stemmy note, and the age is in sharp relief here. Earthy and somewhat tired, this bottle, at least, seems to be on its last legs. A slight tomato leaf herbal note as well. There's still some fruit to give this wine more weight on the palate, but this bottle was probably better and more interesting more than a few years ago.

Lots of bottle variation in this wine, I'm told. This one was absolutely stunning. On the decant, there was almost no sediment suspended because it had all precipitated out into very large chunks. The nose from the get-go was extraordinary, fresher than many 70s and 80s nebbiolos, and showing a distinct perfume note. The fruit here is crystalline and clear, with distinct tart red fruit aromas and flavours. It's such a thrill to open an old wine and experience something like this.

Silky and fully resolved. The fruit isn't as ripe and prominent as in the 1989 alongside, this is more of a perfumed, floral kind of bottle, with a good amount of earthy tones alongside. Fully mature for my taste. This seems a good deal more rustic than the Cavallottos of today, and certainly nowhere as clean and precise.

I really liked this wine a lot. In contrast to the more rustic 1979, this was far cleaner and the fruit showed more distinctly. It's also riper, so you get a good deal of sweetness here. Somewhat darker complexioned, with a really compelling intensity. Likely not on the downswing yet (at least based on this bottle), I'd be in no hurry to open another bottle of this (if I still had any!).

A stellar showing of an older Mascarello (we had good luck today). You might accuse it of being a bit simple because this was a wine that seemed to be fully driven by all its sweet and ripe fruit. But that fruit is quite clean and isn't muddied by any undue earth notes or funk. This is clean, ripe, and large-scaled, with an implied sweetness from the fruit. Some tannins still, but not overbearing.

I preferred the more mature 1990 to this, but given the same amount of time, I think this would be the better wine because it felt that this had more acid and structure to go the distance, while still having similar amounts of fruit (though in this case, more red than black). Very much an old-school style of nebbiolo in terms of its structure. Quite tannic still (not unexpectedly), this has a lot of potential ahead.

I don't think that this bottle was at the level of another bottle of this that I drank a few years ago. This felt a little more immature, with a lot more structural elements here. The perfume on this wine, of course, is incredible, with that lifted, elegant herbal nose from the whole clusters. Interestingly, I found the fruit profile to be more black than red (which wasn't the case with most of the 2001s we drank tonight). Very tannic, it seems like this bottle could have benefitted with a good amount more of bottle age.

This is probably a great wine in two decades, but it's definitely not there today. Distinctly candied with lots of sweet red fruit; almost exuberantly so. Lots of confected notes and behind it of course is the lovely stemmy perfume of Monvigliero. Intense and ripe, I wonder if they pushed the fruit a little too hard (which is kind of strange because the 2015 has never struck me that way, and I'd think that the vintage was even riper). 100 points though? An open faced sandwich heaped tall with Galloni baloney.

A fantastic, intense bottle, which showed a little darker and more closed than the lifted 2001, but still obviously quite red-fruited because after all, this is Cappellano we're talking about. This is made in a much more old-school sort of way, without the high-toned and maybe sometimes volatile notes of some of the wines from the late aughts. Firm and imposing tannic structure, but ample fruit to help cope with it.

I sort of can't believe I've never had this vintage before -- I guess by the time I had discovered these wines around the 2008 release, they were already starting to get a little tricky to find, and backfilling was getting harder and harder. One of my favourites tonight, without a doubt. I love the tart red fruit, with sour cherry, coupled with relatively high acids, and still a good amount of tannin. In a dinner with so many 2001s opened, this showed very similar characteristics to many of the other wines in that way. A sensational, two thumbs up kind of wine. I think many of the table agreed with that.

No. 19750. Sadly oxidized; a shame -- the bottle from a dinner three nights ago was stellar

No. 10395. I don't think this was as explosively exuberant as a bottle three nights ago (perhaps it was more of a contextual thing than anything else), but this was still very much in line with that previous experience. Incredibly generous tart red fruit, lots of acidity, and a lithe, elegant profile despite the still present tannins. Very much an old school, tannic Barolo, but with the tart red fruit that seems to be in vogue so much these days; this is kind of a best of both worlds situation.

Corked.

I must confess that I think others at the table liked the Rinaldi lineup more than I did (though they were obviously very excellent wines in their own right). This was one of my favourites of the flight, alongside the 2001 Brunate. Darkly complexioned, with a moderate amount of secondary complexity, more leathery and earthy, with some very stern and serious tannins. Large-scaled and somewhat monolithic, but very impressive in its stature.

Another large-scaled Barolo, with its massive wall of dark and chewy tannin. I really liked the sweeter fruit here (more black than red) that helped offset some of that imposing tannic structure. I admit tonight that I had trouble getting a great read on the two Rinaldi Tre Tines (using that as shorthand) because of the forbidding tannins relative to all the other wines on the table, but in isolation I think these would have showed a lot better to my palate.

Of the 2001s on the table tonight, I think that this was probably one of the outliers in that its fruit was far darker than the others (even the 2001 Brunate!) and that it felt a lot more burly and unready than the others. Shows much more commonality to the 1999 of the same wine than the 2001 Brunate that was served blind alongside (which really threw me for a loop because of it). Like the 1999, I felt that this was pretty tight due to its structure, and it was hard to get a good read on it. I'd like to try this again some other day in isolation, but the price and availability are both becoming prohibitive.

Served double blind in the Rinaldi flight. This was so different from the other three wines I was thinking it was a different producer altogether. Unlike the three burly, tannic wines preceding this one, there was much more of a "return to form" of the 2001 vintage here. I had actually thought this might even have been a 2004 because it didn't have quite the same tannic structure. More perfumed and red fruited, this was almost delicate next to the same wines. Needless to say, my guesses were all incredibly off base. But this was easily my favourite of the Rinaldi Barolos opened tonight.

No. 14173. (I love the $39 Pastaworks sticker on this bottle.) It's perhaps ever so slightly (read: very much) unfair to open this next to the Giacosa, but hey, they're both Rabajà riservas right? For me the difference is really not so much about the relative quality of the winemaking but boils down to more of a stylistic choice. The Produttori is far more rustic, with more earth notes and tannins that are much larger grained. The quality of the fruit here is indisputable. To my palate however, this bottle showed more bottle age than the Giacosa, but there's a confluence of factors that could have caused that.

No. 3725. The Bruno-era wines here are just so damn good. This is an absolutely spectacular bottle of nebbiolo, with intense red fruit and floral perfume emanating from the glass. Inordinately young, this still doesn't seem to have developed many secondary notes. The fruit is still very much primary and displays in a crystalline, pure fashion on the palate. Almost no earthy/leather elements here, this is really a straight-up expression of perfumed fruit. Some moderately grainy tannins on the midpalate and finish owing to the relative youth, but this certainly has strong long-term potential. My only concern is that given how nice this is now, why even bother waiting longer?

No. 2287. For me, the weakest of the Giacosas, but that's probably the vintage doing most of the talking. And really, the criticisms here are in relation to a slew of very impressive wines on the table already. This shows a little bit of heat and ripeness in comparison, and the fruit character doesn't come through as cleanly. Nicely resolved now; not as much reason to wait in comparison to the better vintages around this year.

No. 14362. This shows a similarity in ripeness to the 1997, but I think the fruit overall is a lot more clear and crystalline here. The fruit is sweeter and more plump in comparison to the slightly more acidic 2001, so in some sense this sits in the happy medium between the 1997 and 2001. Quite charming and more heart-on-its-sleeve than a great bottle of Giacosa, this drinks very, very well right now, to the point that I wouldn't be concerned about opening any of mine (if I still had any).

No. 2194. While I think the 2001 Rabajà was the better wine, this was the bottle that drank better tonight. This was exuberant and effusive with lots of ripe, sweet red cherry notes on the nose and palate. Crystalline, pure expression of fruit, with very little to distract from it. Texturally, this was almost flawless with silky tannins very much on their way to resolution. Easy going and drinking so well now, but unlikely to become one of the truly great red labels.

No. 10496. Very 2001, especially in the context of so many great wines of that vintage tonight. The fruit here, as with the other wines, was red-fruited and bright, with heightened acidity balanced with some youthful, chewy tannins. Delicately perfumed, this wine clearly still has much more road ahead. Probably my favourite of the three white labels.

Served double blind. An almost pinot-like stem note on the nose here that made me think that our generous host had poured a bottle of Dujac into a Bordeaux bottle. At this point in the evening though, my blind tasting skills were probably attenuated. In any case, this had a lovely red-fruited, perfumed nose, with some distinct dried herb flavours. Silky texture with lots of impressive complexity. I had been speaking with a friend, wondering if the wines post-Gambelli are at the same level as wines like this.

Served double blind. Holy smokes, this is incredible. An almost stemmy nose with that lifted perfume and tart red fruits here. Given that our host tends to open some Dujac at the end of the evening, that seemed to be the easy, obvious guess, and really, the gorgeous nose here made me think that this wasn't a bad guess. Very much in a lighter, red-fruited style that after the Gevrey reveal made me think this was Clair. But man, this wine is absolutely bonkers good -- one of the best Jadot CSJs I remember ever having.