06 November 2011

Orlando Abrigo - Barbaresco

We first tasted the wines of Orlando at the cantina of his wife, Virna.  Because of our impending visit to Barbaresco and to the cantina, we have split the post.  The notes below were from our visit to Virna 6 November 2011.

The first one was Orlando's 2006 Nebbiolo d'Alba Valmaggiore 14% alcohol.  On the label is a pair of hands.  The reason is that because of the way this vineyard was originally planted, it can be worked, including picking, only by hand.  The space between the rows is too narrow to get a tractor into the vineyard.  It has a spectacular nose and a very soft structure in the mouth.  This is another "talking wine".

We then tried his 2007 Vigna Rongalio Muruzzano Barbaresco, 14.5% alcohol, open for 24 hours plus.  It is quite austere and needs an extended period of time in the cellar before drinking.

Our last wine was the 2007 Montersino Barbaresco, 14.5% alcohol.  Aged one year in new oak and six months in large botte, it is a spectacular Barbaresco.  It is well balanced between the grape and tannin in the mouth.  We will age this wine for a minimum of three years.

2 September 2014  We opened the one bottle of the 2006 Nebbiolo d'Alba Valmaggiore in our cellar.  A very nice Nebbiolo, ready to drink.  If you have it, time to enjoy it.

7 February 2015  We opened a bottle of the 2007 Montersino Barbaresco with a stuffed chicken thigh and vegetables.  The wine is still very tannic and needs at least another year in the cellar.  However, we will say that we taste the fruit (although quite subdued) and believe that with additional aging, it will be very very nice.

14 November 2015  We opened our second bottle of the 2007 Montersino Barbaresco today and served it with our typical Saturday fare, seafood.  Natalya had a sauteed salmon filet with sauteed red potatoes and onions.  I had a octopus salad with red potatoes, Sicilian olive oil and juice from a lemon from our tree.  We think it needs another 9-12 months in the bottle but is very nice now.  Depends on how you like your Barbarescoes.

6 March 2018  Happy day of the woman to all of our female followers!!  Today, we opened, in honor of my wife and all the other women we know and love, a bottle of the 2007 Montersino Barbaresco.  Yes, it has been almost two and a half years since the last one when we had said 9-12 months but the wine was spectacular in any case.  Natalya had just returned from visiting her younger son and took the kitchen today.  She made a pot of her infamous borsch and chicken and rice blini.  We had some trepidation as to whether the wine would stand up to the borsch but it went very well.  The wine is ready to drink!  We would leave it in the cellar for no more than a year before finishing what you have.  It is extremely good grape juice.  Bravo Orlando!

8 July 2018  Today was sort of a sad day in our home.  We opened the last bottle of the 2007 Montersino Barbaresco from Orlando.  It was time.  The wine, as good as it was, probably had another six months before it started to go downhill.  We served it with Natalya's polpette (chicken meatballs), seasoned with Sicilian oregano, green beans from our garden and straciatella served on toasted bread (one side only) with a slice of tomato from our garden.  Not a fancy Sunday lunch but very healthy!!  Drink it now!!

 

Azienda Agricola Virna - Barolo

We visited this producer in the Comune di Barolo on 5 November 2011.  We also had the opportunity to try the wines of her husband, Orlando Abrigo from Treiso while we were there.

We were warmly greeted by Virna and taken inside the cantina to the tasting room.

All the wines, except where noted, were opened 24 hours previously.

The first was the 2009 Nebbiolo, 13.5% alcohol.  It spent one year in large Slovenian botte.  A good example of the local Nebbiolo with balanced tannin and grape taste.  There was just a slight alcohol aftertaste noted that will probably become unnoticeable with aging of around two years.

The 2007 Barolo di Base was the next offering, 14.5% alcohol.  It is a blend of grapes from a number of vineyards.  The nose was quite subdued.  The mouth showed a good balance of the grape and tannin.  We recommend that this be drank now to 2014 as a "talking wine".  The Barolo character would be lost in anything but the mildest cheeses so we suggest that you drink it with friends with a pleasant conversation.  This wine is a great value and was purchased for our cellar.

The next was the 2007 Cannubi Boschis, 14.5% alcohol.  This wine is from the vineyard behind Virna's home.  It was aged in three different manners:  33% in large Slovenian botte, 33% in used small oak barrels up to three years old and 33% in new oak.  The nose was very nice with the mouth displaying a good balance of big tannins and big grape flavors.  The alcohol was not evident in what we tasted.  We purchased this wine and will leave in our cellar for up to four years.  We also purchased the 2006 vintage of this spectacular wine.  It will stay in the cellar for probably ten years.  Please read on for a discussion of the 2006 vintage in Barolo.

2006 is widely though of being a less than stellar year for Barolo.  The Barolo producers have labeled it as "Grande" or "Great" rather than "Eccezionale" or "Exceptional".  They write that 2006 produced "Vino di grande struttura ed austerita`.  Profumo intenso e complesso.  Gusto pieno, con tannicita` importante; di lunga vitalita`." (wine of great structure and austerity.  Intense, complex grape flavors in the nose.  Full taste with a heavy tannin presence, to have a long life in the cellar).

However, we have found it to be one of the best if you have patience to let it develop.

We digress because the next offering was another 2006, the Preda Sarmassa, 14% alcohol.  These two vineyards (Preda near La Morra, Sarmassa near Barolo) have contrasting styles because of different soil types.  But, they go very well together.  The nose has a distinct alcohol feel to it which we believe will age out   The mouth supports the big tannins with big grape flavors.  This wine will last years in our cellar.  We will open a bottle in three to five years to see how much longer we can enjoy it.

Because of our impending visit to Barbaresco and the Abrigo cantina, we have decided to split these posts.  You will find our comments on Orlando Abrigo on his own.

On a personal note, we could not have been treated nicer than we were at Virna.  We would highly recommend that anyone that wanted to try the real Barolo and get a little of Barbaresco mixed in, call Virna for an appointment to see her facility and taste/purchase some of the best wines in the area.  We will go back with each new release.

1 January 2012:  With our neighbors, we had a bottle of the 2007 Virna Cannubi Boschis last evening.  It was open for approximately three hours before serving.  The nose was muted but the tannin and grape were very evident.  It went very well with the Chicken Tikka Masala and the Shrimp and Indian potatoes.  The nose did develop over time as well as the grape and tannin becoming less of a distraction.  However, as noted previously, it is really not ready to drink.  We determined that we will let it remain in the cellar for another three years.

24 August 2012.  We opened a bottle of the 2007 Barolo di Base for lunch today.  Yes, I suggested that it be a "conversation wine" but Natalya made a light lunch today (very hot and humid here) so we took a chance.  The wine still has a subdued nose but the mouth was very nice and got better for the two hours it took us to drink it.  Highly recommended for a light lunch or a conversation wine.

31 December 2012  We opened another bottle of the 2007 Barolo to accompany the Ukrainian ravioli that Natalya made for our before midnight meal.  It was very nice, well balanced between the fruit and tannin.  Recommend that you leave it open for a half hour before drinking. If you cannot, leave it in the cellar for another six months.  The nose is still subdued but the mouth is full.

27 July 2013  We opened another bottle of the 2007 Barolo di Base for lunch today.  As we had previously written, it is a conversation wine.  We had a fillet of lake perch with tomatoes from our garden and mozzarella Romana.  Even a light fish such as the perch "stepped on" the flavors of the wine.  We need to read our own writings!!

23 September 2014  We opened the last bottle of the 2007 Barolo di base for lunch today.  We had prepared a plate of pasta with sugo made from our tomatoes, basil and garlic.  At first, the wine was flat with little nose or mouth.  After about 1/2 hour, it started to come around and after about a hour, we wondered why we did not have more.  Our recommendation is to open it now, wait a half hour and serve with a nice pasta dish, not too heavily spiced.

10 November 2014  We opened the last bottle of the 2007 Barolo Cannubi Boschis for lunch yesterday.  We had prepared a stuffed chicken thigh, browned and then finished in our sugu.  The stuffing was dark bread crumbs, half of a hard boiled egg and oregano.  It did very well with this dish, being enhanced by the flavours of the chicken and the tomato sauce.  It could have taken another six months in the bottle but we cannot be exact when there are a limited number of bottles.  If it is in your cellar and you have more than one, we recommend you try a bottle.

6 January 2015  We opened one of last bottles of the 2006 Preda Sarmassa today to go with a plate of pasta with the sauce we make from our tomatoes and ground turkey.  The wine showed a little excess tannin in the beginning but was soon very well balanced.  However, by the time lunch had finished, the wine was starting to show its age.  We have one more bottle in the cellar and will drink it soon.  If you have this wine and more than one bottle, try one now.  If only one is left in your cellar, drink it.  It is very good Barolo!!

15 March 2015  It is too bad when you drink the last bottle from a producer's vineyard for a particular year.  But, the disappointment is somewhat blunted when you know that you opened the bottle at the correct time!  Today, we opened our next to last bottle of the 2006 Preda Sarmassa to go with a lasagna we made.  The combination was what you wish for with every bottle of wine you own (or at least we do).  Drink it now.  It is really spectacular grape juice.

19 November 2015  Our next to the last bottle of the 2008 Cannubi Bochis was served with a simple lunch of chicken ravioli and steamed broccoli.  What a very nice wine!!  It is ready to drink.  It went well with this food selection and did not overwhelm it nor was it muted by the lunch.  If you have this wine, we suggest that you open a bottle to try it.  Closed glasses were used to stop the wine from oxidizing too much.

3 May 2016  Regretfully, the last bottle of the 2008 Cannubi Bochis was opened today.  We served it with an Italian style burrito that had a lot of fresh vegetables and some ground turkey in it.  It was spiced with curcuma.  The wine is ready to drink.  It was the same wine from first taste to last.  We served it in closed mouth glasses used strictly for Barolo.  Highly recommended, drink it if you have it.  Maybe we will ask Virna if she has a few more bottles of it. 

25 February 2018  On occasion, we pick a bottle out of the cellar just to sit and talk.  This evening, we chose the Virna 2007 Preda Sarmassa.  What a great wine!  We had a few appetizers to go with it but the star of the evening was the Barolo (if you exclude what happened after the bottle was finished).  Open a bottle and try it yourself.  It is very good grape juice!!. 

22 July 2018  It is Sunday and Vittorio had the kitchen.  He decided to make one of his specialties, the stuffed chick thigh.  However, this Sunday he used two thighs from our new vendor of chicken in Tonco, Provincia di Asti.  Each thigh is stuffed with half a hard-boiled egg, some rye bread crumbs, organic Sicilian oregano, a little garlic powder and a little salt and pepper (both freshly ground).  The thighs are tied and sauteed on all sides in Sicilian olive oil and then simmered for about one hour or until cooked through.  The chicken was served on a sauce of fava beans and garnished with Chinese long beans from the garden.  The 2006 Preda Sarmassa was opened about 15 minutes before the chicken was done.  The wine held up very well to the chicken and did not mute the flavors of the thigh.  Wine is ready to drink.  We have one more bottle that we will hold until the end of the year.  Try it, it is very good grape juice!

13 August 2018  Today we opened the next to last bottle of the 2006 Cannubi Bochis.  Being the year it is, we decided to open it just before serving a lunch of red potato and porcini ravioli that Natalya made along with two ears of silver queen corn from our garden.  The wine was an almost perfect match for this somewhat "Slovenian" style lunch (which may be defined as food with little if any spices).  We strongly recommend that if you have this wine that you try a bottle soon.  It is spectacular wine as of the day we write this treatise.  It would have stood up to a more spicy dish but there was nothing wrong with the combination!  Great wine, Virna!!!!!!!!

23 September 2018  Today we opened the last bottle of Virna's 2007 Preda Sarmassa Barolo.  We served it with gnocchi di zucca preceded by boscaiolo cheese that was warmed in a saute pan.  Both stood up well to the wine.  We are a bit unhappy that this was our last bottle of the Preda Sarmassa but we are happy we had the chance to try it.  Again, a great wine from Virna!

01 January 2019  Happy new year fans!  Today, Vittorio was in the kitchen with Natalya assisting.  I had decided to take a half faronna (guinea hen) from the freezer (the hen was grown in Tonco without antibiotics).  Since Valentina had told us that the hen was a little older than normal, we should cook it for a little longer.  We sauteed the pieces after then had been floured in Sicilian olive oil that we source directly from the grower.  After they were browned, we added some of Michele's Arneis and covered the pan and added four small sprigs of fresh rosemary from one of the plants in our garden.  The pan was covered and allowed to cook on relatively low heat, continually watching to see if more of the Arneis was needed.  After about one hour, the hen seemed to be cooked.  We adjusted the seasoning and let the hen remain in the pan while the liquid, for the most part, was taken into the hen.  It was served with my mother's recipe for new year's lentils with spinach and Sicilian olive oil plus a salad of anise bulb with seasoning of lemon juice and a little sliced onion.  We had pulled the last bottle of the 2006 Virna Cannubi Boschis Barolo.  We had thought that the wine would be really ready.  In reality, it could use another two years in the cantina.  We will contact Virna to see if she has any more of this very, very good grape juice.  It is a bit tannic but after an hour open, it was one of the smoothest Barolos that we have in our collection.  It is very good.  Kept in the proper storage, you have a minimum of 2 years to drink it.  But, try a bottle.  You many not have any left after you drink the first of it.  Thanks, Virna, it was a great new year with your wine!!!!

Erbaluna - Borgo Pozzo, Frazione Annunziata, La Morra

We visited the cantina on 4 November 2011.  Our guide through the wines was Giulia from the Erbaluna offices.

The tasting room is filled with old bottles of Barolo, regretfully nothing from the year of either of our births.

Erbaluna produces only wines from grapes grown under strict Italian agriculture standards.  There is no pesticides used on the vines so the wines have the "biological" label.

There were a number of bottles for tasting, from their whites to their grappas.  All had been opened for at least six hours unless otherwise noted in the description.

We first tried the 2009 Nebbiolo, 14.5% alcohol, bottled September 1, 2011.  The wine spent one year in large Slovenian barrels.  It was very soft and ready to drink.

The second offering was the 2007 Erbaluna Barolo, 15% alcohol.  This is their "Barolo di Base", produced from a variety of vineyards.  It had a light Barolo nose.  In the mouth, it was three separate pieces, the grape, the tannin and the alcohol.  They are fairly well balanced.  We believe it will take anywhere from three to five years to come together.  We purchased this wine.

The next was the 2007 Vigna Rocche, 15% alcohol.  This had been open for two days.  There was a strange odor in the glass when first poured but blew off quickly.  Thus, if you have this wine in your cellar, we recommend you decant it before serving.  It has a good nose with very good structure that will require again, at least three years in the cellar before drinking.  We purchased this wine also.

We were also served the 1997 and 2000 Barolos but they were "over the hill" probably because they had been open too long.

We also purchased their Grappa di Nebbiolo.

16 August 2014  For lunch today, we opened a bottle of the 2007 Erbaluna Barolo.  We had made a smoked salmon and onion omelet with Indian spiced potatoes.  We needed something that would stand up to the Indian spices so tried the Barolo.  It did quite well for itself.  Whereas, the wine was in three pieces (grape, tannin and alcohol) when we bought it, it had pretty much evened itself out to a very good example of the wine.  There was a very nice nose that had developed also.  We consider this wine ready to drink.  Recommended for a light meal, not highly spiced.

31 March 2016  For lunch today, which was a plate of pasta with our sauce that was derived from my Sicilian grandmother's recipe and a plate of mozzarella with Sicilian olive oil , we opened another bottle of the 2007 Erbaluna Barolo.  As mentioned above, this is the base Barolo, made from grapes that are not of a single vineyard but those that were from a number of places.  The wine was opened about 15 minutes before the pasta was cooked.  It was quite acidic upon first taste and smell.  It proceeded to open more and change from an acidic wine with little fruit in the mouth to a wine that was drinkable but not the type of Barolo we are used to now.  After one hour of being opened, and at the end of our meal, it had become somewhat even in its mouth and nose and was drinkable.  We have another bottle that we have labeled "open one hour before".  Have it in your cellar?  Drink it now but we believe you should open it one hour before consumption!

15 July 2016 We opened the last bottle of the 2007 Barolo base that we had in our cellar today for lunch with a pasta dish that we prepared with shrimp cooked in Sicilian olive oil, seasoned with garlic grown in our garden, a little paprika and some dried oregano from our garden also.  We had opened the bottle about 45 minutes before serving the pasta and realized that the wine was not ready.  However, after about 20 minutes, it turned into a very nice Barolo with good fruit and tannin and a touch too much acid.  During the meal, the wine leveled out to "one piece" which we enjoyed greatly with our meal.  Recommended that you drink it now!!

5 March 2017  A sad day in our home today.  We opened the last bottle of the 2007 Erbaluna Vigna Rocche.  It was served with spinach and ricotta cannelloni.  The wine went very well with the light to medium flavors of the cannelloni.  Compliments to my wife for trying something new in our kitchen.  We highly recommend that you open this wine and drink it within the next year if it has been stored properly.  It is ready to drink and a great example of the Rocche vinyeard.
 

Renato Ratti - Annunziata, La Morra

We were at the cantina on 4 November 2011.  We were greeted by Francesca Sandri from the Ratti offices.

After a short wait, we were shown into the tasting room where there were three bottles on the table to taste.  We were expecting to see the 2007 Marcenasco as well as two vintages of the Rocche bottling that Ms Sandri had told us we would be able to taste.  Instead there was the Marcenasco and one vintage of the Rocche (2007) and their 2007 Barbera d'Alba.  We did the tasting on our feet as we were not invited to sit.  As is our custom, we will discuss only the 2007 Marcenesco and the 2007 Rocche.

We had had the Marcenasco at a restaurant in Novello some weeks before and found it not to our liking.  I had told Ms Sandri this when I called for the appointment and it is then that she told me that we would have two vintages of the Rocche to try.

The wines were open six hours when we tasted them.

The 2007 Ratti Marcenasco is a blend from a number of Barolo vineyards in the Barolo area.  Ms Sandri described this as their "Barolo di Base", their basic Barolo.  While it is not unpleasant, it is not of the style that we prefer.  The nose is classic Barolo.  In the mouth is a nice tannin feeling but not so much so that it is overwhelming.  There is a lesser amount of the flavor of the grape in this effort.  We question whether it will be balanced when it is ready to drink, in our opinion in at least five years.

The 2007 Rocche comes from one of the better known vineyards in the area.  Its location is near Castiglione Falletto, one of the eleven towns.that are in the Barolo growing area.  This wine has a full Barolo nose with good separation in the mouth of tannin and the grape.  We believe it will take at least five years to become a balanced wine.  We did purchase this wine.

06 September 2016  If you have read the preceding information, you will know that we were received quite "coldly" when we visited the cantina in 2011.  Back then we did not record a lot of information about the wines but in this case, we noted that the reception was not what we got when we visit cantinas now.  Now a bit about the 2007 Rocche that we opened for the first time today.  We wanted to open it because we intend on giving one of the bottles as a gift to my orthopedic surgeon that did a prosthesis on my left shoulder the end of October.  I am doing ok, obviously it is difficult to "hunt and peck" but I am getting by.  The wine was opened today to serve with a lunch of pumpkin soup, Russian salad made by the Russian member of this twosome and Lebanese dolma (a stuffed grape leaf).  We did not expect much (wine "cold" like the reception we received?) but we were pleasantly surprised.  The wine is ready to drink.  However, we are going to suggest that you leave it open for a half hour before serving it.  All the pieces are there especially the fruit and the nose.  Recommended!!

01-01-2017  The first Barolo of 2017 (but surely not the last)!  We drank the last bottle of the 2007 Rocche today with our NYD meal.  We prepared a risotto with lobster (hey, it is NYD) and lentils with spinach.  Yes, not what you would normally prepare but we had some of the lentils left over from last night (a dish that we eat to bring new luck in the coming year because the lentils signify small coins) and we thought "why not put them in the risotto?".  It was very good.  Will do the combination again.  The wine did not disappoint.  But, we still remember the cold reception from our first visit to Ratti.  It is highly unlikely we will return there.  They will have to change their client reception practices and communicate same to us before we will.