February 16, 2024 - Audozed four hours before serving double-blind to some friends. As expected, even with some air prior to serving, this continued to open until it was finished some two hours later. I hadn't checked in on this vintage in some years and given this showing, I'm going to move my drink thru date from 2041 to 2036. Elegant, good freshness and plenty of fruit at the core to see this into the next decade. Red fruits with accents of black tea and savory. Loved it. highly recommended
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December 1, 2022 - Dark, rich and fleshy, wonderfully mature. Crushed & macerated blackberries, plum, heaps of licorce and a beautifully kicking hint of lingonberry show up. Mouthfilling, almost exploding on the palate. Excellent to drink today and a much better bottle than the one some weeks ago.
October 21, 2022 - During a Barolo/Piedmont tasting lunch, not blind. This was not very clean, funky, wtih dusty elements, drying tannins.
October 15, 2022 - This was open and very mature, with plenty of tertiary notes, like dried flowers, some underwood, mushroom, menthol, pine, some tar, tobacco. It‘s full-bodied, dense and pretty powerful, with medium tannin and good freshness with medium+ acidtiy and good length. This got more and more oxidative over the course of the evening. Not surprisingly like many 1998, it‘s time to drink up. The rating reflects the initial impression, before oxidizing.
July 16, 2022 - garnet, fade and starts to break. Hint of oxidation. Plum. Delicious with gruyere sweet onion hickory-smoked bacon flatbread
August 22, 2020 - solid but not exceptional. well preserved. seems like there’s plenty of life left, but not sure it’s going anywhere better. bright cherry fruit, a touch of leather. not a lot of secondary character.
December 9, 2018 - Vinetasters: Brown Bag (Skokie, IL): Served double blind. A bit of high-toned Sharpie on the nose here. The palate is fairly sweet and ripe, and shows a lot of modernist tones. Oak tannin pokes out here. Almost certainly a relatively modern-producer of Barolo. I was a little disappointed here -- would have expected a lot more from this bottle.
December 9, 2018 - Rustic black fruits with classic tar and roses. Toasted with a dry edge. Black oil, tense firm, traditionally styled. Good.
March 28, 2018 - 1998 Barolo and Barbaresco Retrospective; 3/24/2018-3/31/2018 (Ai Fiori): This was the other wine tonight that clearly needed more time and had significant potential. power of the fruit is balanced by bright mineral notes and a racy, tannic mid. it drinks significantly younger than others, and perhaps a bit less elegant as well but makes up for it in power and earthy, mineral laden fruit.
March 27, 2018 - 1998 Barolo & Barbaresco – A 20-year retrospective (AI Fiori): At first the bouquet was restrained, showing only crushed stone and a hint of animal musk, yet with time in the glass, notes of dried strawberry and roses with dusty soil tones and undergrowth began to waft up from the glass. On the palate, I found a cool, classic, savory and refined expression, with dark red fruits and hints of balsamic spice giving way to saline-minerals and unbelievably youthful tannin. The finish was long and structured, showing mineral-laden black cherry, balsamic spice, and earth tones. The ‘98 Vigna Rionda was amazingly classic, years away from its drinking window and full of potential.