On 8 September 2013, some of the producers from the area of Barolo will participate in a festa along with a number of producers of different foods that are made in the area. The festa begins at 1100 on Sunday.
Here is the listing from the Comune di Barolo:
Domenica dalle ore 11.00BANCHI D'ASSAGGIO GASTRONOMICI
DEGUSTAZIONI DEL BAROLO DI BAROLO
TEATRO DI STRADA
SPETTACOLI D'INTRATTENIMENTO
There were a great many stands with various handicrafts, prepared foods, wild mushrooms and even books. We walked the length of Barolo from the main piazza to the Castello di Faletti where the Museo di Vini is before finding the wines to be tasted in the small square at the Castle. The tasting was put on by the Enoteca (wine store) in the Castle, not the producers as in Barolo. Personally, we prefer to talk to the producer about their efforts but this tasting was not to be as such. It will probably be the last time we go to the Festa di Barolo.
We tasted about ten different wines at about euro 3.50 per taste plus a refundable euro 2 for the glass (so very strange).
Out of those we tasted, I will list only four that we would consider visiting the cantina:
Chiara Bochis (see our blog on this producer)
Bric Cenciurio
Scarzello
Virna (see our blog on this producer)
Virna has a small shop in Barolo so we went there to taste some of her other offerings. We ended up buying some wine from the shop so will update the blog as soon as possible.
02 September 2013
13 August 2013
Grand Degustazione at La Morra - 2013
For those of you that missed the tasting yesterday, you missed some great Barolos and Nebbiolos. Out of the approximately 35 producers represented there, we think that the following list will keeps us busy meeting the people at the cantine and tasting all of their offerings.
These are in alphabetical order, not necessarily in the order we will visit them.
Bocchino Eugenio
Bosco Agostino
Cascina Ballarin
Cordero di Montezemolo
Curto Marco
Ellena Giuseppe
Ferrero f.lli
Grasso Silvio
Marengo Mario
Oberto Andrea
Revello f.lli
Viberti Osvaldo
There were also some cantine that we have previously written about such as Ciabot Berton and Erbaluna.
These cantine can expect communication from us requesting a visit. Watch for our reports!!
These are in alphabetical order, not necessarily in the order we will visit them.
Bocchino Eugenio
Bosco Agostino
Cascina Ballarin
Cordero di Montezemolo
Curto Marco
Ellena Giuseppe
Ferrero f.lli
Grasso Silvio
Marengo Mario
Oberto Andrea
Revello f.lli
Viberti Osvaldo
There were also some cantine that we have previously written about such as Ciabot Berton and Erbaluna.
These cantine can expect communication from us requesting a visit. Watch for our reports!!
11 August 2013
Azienda Agricola Martino
A little off point here...as previously stated, we spend quite a bit of time in the area around Barolo. One of our favorite places to eat and to stay is Angolo di Rosina in Novello (see our review on Tripadvisor.com).
The proprietor is Massimo Martino. Last year, when we were in La Morra for the Barolo tasting (this year it is on 1 September), his wife Tiziana took us from their bed and breakfast, Tra Monti e Vigne, to La Morra. After the tasting, he picked us up and took us to Rosina where we had dinner and then back to the B&B. A very handy service they provide so that you do not have to drive when you are impaired as we were.
We had the opportunity to see his first efforts as a winemaker with the 2010 Langhe Nebbiolo. Today, 11 August 2013, we made a risotto with Barolo and opened the 2010 Nebbiolo to have with it.
Hopefully, he has more of the 2010. If not, we have a bottle of the 2011 in the cantina. We will try to get more of the 2010 and/or the 2011 when we are there on the first of September.
Highly recommended!!!
8 September 2013 The 2010 is finished. However, we had a bottle of the 2011 with dinner on Sunday evening at Rosina. It is very good. We bought another six bottles to keep in the cellar. We are giving it about six months to settle down after the trip home.
22 May 2015 We opened a bottle of the 2011 Langhe Nebbiolo for lunch today and served my Sicilian Grandmother's meatballs (made with ground turkey) with it. It went very well with the meal. Ready to drink but will hold for a few more months.
23 August 2015 We opened our last bottle of the 2011 Langhe Nebbiolo for lunch today which was a Chinese style vegetable stir fry with pieces of turkey breast. The wine held up very well for the entire meal and was a great compliment to it. Highly recommended. We feel it is ready to drink now.
02 October 2016 We opened one of our bottles of Massimo's 2013 Langhe Nebbiolo for lunch today. Massimo had told us back in June when we visited their B&B in La Morra that the wine was ready to drink. It is very, very good. We served it with a plate of pizzochieri. Great wine, ready to drink, try it now!! Should last for another year but do not be disappointed if it does not.
03 December 2016 As you can probably glean by the entries above, we are big fans of Massimo and his various endeavors. We sleep in two, eat in another and drink from the third. This review, however, is about the drink! Our neighbors since we have lived here are moving closer to his place of work. They came over this evening to discuss some of the details and outline what we will need to do to watch their residence while they are living in the other. We opened a bottle of Massimo's 2013 Nebbiolo as a conversation wine. We reiterate our feeling that the wine is ready to drink now! It is a very good, light, Nebbiolo that will go with most meals as well as being a conversation wine. Have it in your cellar? Try a bottle now and tell us what you think of it!!!
9 March 2017 We opened the last bottle of the 2013 Langhe Nebbiolo for lunch today. We had a very typical Sicilian meal comprised of a plate of pasta with the sauce that we make from our tomatoes using my grandmother's recipe with a small addition (fresh ground black pepper) and her polpette (meatballs) made from her recipe except that instead of ground beef, we use ground turkey. The wine is still very good but we believe that it is in its final months. It has become quite acidic and the fruit is lacking after a short time open. We suggest that, if you have not done so and have the wine, try it now.
6 August 2017 Massimo had given us a bottle of his 2011Barolo to try. We had read that the 2011 was ready to drink when it came out of resting which would have been in 2014. We held it to rest after the drive home and opened it for lunch today. The menu was a tomato soup that Natalya had made from the tomatoes that were left over from our canning efforts today (which she asked me to season with a light Indian spice combo and I ended up turning into a sauce rather than a soup), some chicken meatballs that we used the same spice in and some Indian basmati rice. The wine was not ready to drink. It was still in pieces but you could tell, with at least 4-5 years of rest, would be quite good. If you have it, put a 2020 open date on it if you have the patience.
The proprietor is Massimo Martino. Last year, when we were in La Morra for the Barolo tasting (this year it is on 1 September), his wife Tiziana took us from their bed and breakfast, Tra Monti e Vigne, to La Morra. After the tasting, he picked us up and took us to Rosina where we had dinner and then back to the B&B. A very handy service they provide so that you do not have to drive when you are impaired as we were.
We had the opportunity to see his first efforts as a winemaker with the 2010 Langhe Nebbiolo. Today, 11 August 2013, we made a risotto with Barolo and opened the 2010 Nebbiolo to have with it.
Hopefully, he has more of the 2010. If not, we have a bottle of the 2011 in the cantina. We will try to get more of the 2010 and/or the 2011 when we are there on the first of September.
Highly recommended!!!
8 September 2013 The 2010 is finished. However, we had a bottle of the 2011 with dinner on Sunday evening at Rosina. It is very good. We bought another six bottles to keep in the cellar. We are giving it about six months to settle down after the trip home.
22 May 2015 We opened a bottle of the 2011 Langhe Nebbiolo for lunch today and served my Sicilian Grandmother's meatballs (made with ground turkey) with it. It went very well with the meal. Ready to drink but will hold for a few more months.
23 August 2015 We opened our last bottle of the 2011 Langhe Nebbiolo for lunch today which was a Chinese style vegetable stir fry with pieces of turkey breast. The wine held up very well for the entire meal and was a great compliment to it. Highly recommended. We feel it is ready to drink now.
02 October 2016 We opened one of our bottles of Massimo's 2013 Langhe Nebbiolo for lunch today. Massimo had told us back in June when we visited their B&B in La Morra that the wine was ready to drink. It is very, very good. We served it with a plate of pizzochieri. Great wine, ready to drink, try it now!! Should last for another year but do not be disappointed if it does not.
03 December 2016 As you can probably glean by the entries above, we are big fans of Massimo and his various endeavors. We sleep in two, eat in another and drink from the third. This review, however, is about the drink! Our neighbors since we have lived here are moving closer to his place of work. They came over this evening to discuss some of the details and outline what we will need to do to watch their residence while they are living in the other. We opened a bottle of Massimo's 2013 Nebbiolo as a conversation wine. We reiterate our feeling that the wine is ready to drink now! It is a very good, light, Nebbiolo that will go with most meals as well as being a conversation wine. Have it in your cellar? Try a bottle now and tell us what you think of it!!!
9 March 2017 We opened the last bottle of the 2013 Langhe Nebbiolo for lunch today. We had a very typical Sicilian meal comprised of a plate of pasta with the sauce that we make from our tomatoes using my grandmother's recipe with a small addition (fresh ground black pepper) and her polpette (meatballs) made from her recipe except that instead of ground beef, we use ground turkey. The wine is still very good but we believe that it is in its final months. It has become quite acidic and the fruit is lacking after a short time open. We suggest that, if you have not done so and have the wine, try it now.
6 August 2017 Massimo had given us a bottle of his 2011Barolo to try. We had read that the 2011 was ready to drink when it came out of resting which would have been in 2014. We held it to rest after the drive home and opened it for lunch today. The menu was a tomato soup that Natalya had made from the tomatoes that were left over from our canning efforts today (which she asked me to season with a light Indian spice combo and I ended up turning into a sauce rather than a soup), some chicken meatballs that we used the same spice in and some Indian basmati rice. The wine was not ready to drink. It was still in pieces but you could tell, with at least 4-5 years of rest, would be quite good. If you have it, put a 2020 open date on it if you have the patience.
28 July 2013
Reverdito - La Morra
Last stop on our anniversary weekend was the cantina Reverdito. They have a complete selection of Barolos for every taste.
First wine was the 2010 Nebbiolo Simane. The wine was opened for us. This is a nice Nebbiolo. The nose was muted but the mouth showed good fruit and acid with a modicum of tannin. Recommended. Purchased for our cellar (euro 7 per bottle)
Next was the 2009 Barolo di base. Wine was also opened for us. This wine is from their younger vineyards. Very good example of the grape. Balanced fruit, acid and tannins. Ready to drink. Euro 18 per bottle.
2009 Barolo Castagni was presented next. Wine was opened for us. Balanced fruit, acid and tannins. Drinkable now. Highly recommended. Purchased for our cellar (euro 20 per bottle).
The 2008 Barolo Moncucco was next. Very good nose. A light "conversation' wine. Euro 25 per bottle.
The 2006 Barolo Badarina was next. Very good Barolo nose, good tannins and acid. Needs three years in cantina. Recommended. Euro 25 per bottle).
The 2007 Barolo Bricco Cogni was presented next. Big fruit and acid, light tannin. Ready to drink. Euro 35 per bottle).
The last was the 2004 Barolo S. Giacomo Riserva. Good balance, ready to drink. Euro 40 per bottle.
8 March 2014 We opened a bottle of the 2010 Nebbiolo Simane today for Women's Day. At first, we were put off by the front and back of the mouth. However, after being open for 30-45 minutes it came around and is quite good. However, we must advise anyone who has this wine of two things: we think it is ready to drink with the aforementioned time open and we know it will not last until the next day if you do not drink it all.
9 January 2015 We opened the second bottle of the 2010 Nebbiolo Simane today for a lunch of sauteed chicken breast and home grown potatoes with bagnet sauce. The wine exhibits an abundance of tannin and the heavy smell of oak from the barrels it was produced in. We believe that it needs an additional year in the cellar before another is opened.
24 January 2016 We opened the first of our bottles of the 2009 Barolo Castagni this evening. The occasion (not that we need one) was our friend Maeve Stengel was visiting from Brazil. Our neighbors were also in attendance. During the day, we had taken Maeve to Monale, Italy for their Bagna Cauda. Bagna Cauda, for the uninitiated, is a Piemontese dish made from anchovies, garlic, a little milk and olive oil. It is all cooked together (write us for the recipe) and served with raw and cooked vegetables. It is, as you might suspect, a pretty heavy dish. We needed a Barolo that would stand up to it even though we had finished eating two or three hour before. Since we had not opened the Castagni, we thought that we would try it. The wine is very good, ready to drink. The only thing that we were a little disappointed in was that it lost its nose after about a hour open. Otherwise, it is ready to drink and should be for another two to three years. We think that it would be best as a conversation wine. Food would not be easy to match to it.
3 May 2016 Throwing all caution to the wind, we opened a bottle of the 2009 Castagni to serve with a Mexican type burrito type of ground turkey and vegetables with a added flavor of pickled jalapenos. Obviously, we like to experiment with wine/food combinations. Surprisingly, the wine stood up quite well with the spicy lunch. We recommend that if you have it in your cellar, it is time to drink it although we think it has a good two or three years in the bottle before it starts to go downhill.
26 July 2016 We had Natalya's son and his family, who live in Istanbul, as guests for a week. Her son has a bad memory of red wine from when he was young but was open to trying a good wine to see if he could get over it. We prepared the burrito with ground turkey and vegetables for them. We opened a bottle of the 2009 Castagni to go with it. Luckily he liked the wine very much. So much, he wanted to take a bottle of it back to Istanbul but we have only one more so we sent a bottle of another of our favorite Barolos with them with the caution to put it in a cool dark place for a year to get over the plane trip (vibrations).
5 October 2016 Today is the sixth anniversary of Natalya's arrival in Italy so it is quite occasion for us. We opened our last bottle of the 2009 Castagni to serve with the pasta and the dolma that Natalya made. The wine is ready to drink! It is a very good example of what a great Barolo is like when you give it time to rest and come together. If you have it, open a bottle. Tell us (and the cantina) what you think of it. We are sorry that there is no more of it in our collection.
First wine was the 2010 Nebbiolo Simane. The wine was opened for us. This is a nice Nebbiolo. The nose was muted but the mouth showed good fruit and acid with a modicum of tannin. Recommended. Purchased for our cellar (euro 7 per bottle)
Next was the 2009 Barolo di base. Wine was also opened for us. This wine is from their younger vineyards. Very good example of the grape. Balanced fruit, acid and tannins. Ready to drink. Euro 18 per bottle.
2009 Barolo Castagni was presented next. Wine was opened for us. Balanced fruit, acid and tannins. Drinkable now. Highly recommended. Purchased for our cellar (euro 20 per bottle).
The 2008 Barolo Moncucco was next. Very good nose. A light "conversation' wine. Euro 25 per bottle.
The 2006 Barolo Badarina was next. Very good Barolo nose, good tannins and acid. Needs three years in cantina. Recommended. Euro 25 per bottle).
The 2007 Barolo Bricco Cogni was presented next. Big fruit and acid, light tannin. Ready to drink. Euro 35 per bottle).
The last was the 2004 Barolo S. Giacomo Riserva. Good balance, ready to drink. Euro 40 per bottle.
8 March 2014 We opened a bottle of the 2010 Nebbiolo Simane today for Women's Day. At first, we were put off by the front and back of the mouth. However, after being open for 30-45 minutes it came around and is quite good. However, we must advise anyone who has this wine of two things: we think it is ready to drink with the aforementioned time open and we know it will not last until the next day if you do not drink it all.
9 January 2015 We opened the second bottle of the 2010 Nebbiolo Simane today for a lunch of sauteed chicken breast and home grown potatoes with bagnet sauce. The wine exhibits an abundance of tannin and the heavy smell of oak from the barrels it was produced in. We believe that it needs an additional year in the cellar before another is opened.
24 January 2016 We opened the first of our bottles of the 2009 Barolo Castagni this evening. The occasion (not that we need one) was our friend Maeve Stengel was visiting from Brazil. Our neighbors were also in attendance. During the day, we had taken Maeve to Monale, Italy for their Bagna Cauda. Bagna Cauda, for the uninitiated, is a Piemontese dish made from anchovies, garlic, a little milk and olive oil. It is all cooked together (write us for the recipe) and served with raw and cooked vegetables. It is, as you might suspect, a pretty heavy dish. We needed a Barolo that would stand up to it even though we had finished eating two or three hour before. Since we had not opened the Castagni, we thought that we would try it. The wine is very good, ready to drink. The only thing that we were a little disappointed in was that it lost its nose after about a hour open. Otherwise, it is ready to drink and should be for another two to three years. We think that it would be best as a conversation wine. Food would not be easy to match to it.
3 May 2016 Throwing all caution to the wind, we opened a bottle of the 2009 Castagni to serve with a Mexican type burrito type of ground turkey and vegetables with a added flavor of pickled jalapenos. Obviously, we like to experiment with wine/food combinations. Surprisingly, the wine stood up quite well with the spicy lunch. We recommend that if you have it in your cellar, it is time to drink it although we think it has a good two or three years in the bottle before it starts to go downhill.
26 July 2016 We had Natalya's son and his family, who live in Istanbul, as guests for a week. Her son has a bad memory of red wine from when he was young but was open to trying a good wine to see if he could get over it. We prepared the burrito with ground turkey and vegetables for them. We opened a bottle of the 2009 Castagni to go with it. Luckily he liked the wine very much. So much, he wanted to take a bottle of it back to Istanbul but we have only one more so we sent a bottle of another of our favorite Barolos with them with the caution to put it in a cool dark place for a year to get over the plane trip (vibrations).
5 October 2016 Today is the sixth anniversary of Natalya's arrival in Italy so it is quite occasion for us. We opened our last bottle of the 2009 Castagni to serve with the pasta and the dolma that Natalya made. The wine is ready to drink! It is a very good example of what a great Barolo is like when you give it time to rest and come together. If you have it, open a bottle. Tell us (and the cantina) what you think of it. We are sorry that there is no more of it in our collection.
Ciabot Berton - La Morra
Tasted at the La Morra Degustazione on 2 September 2012.
Tasted at the cantina 28 June 2013 Got there finally).
We liked their wines!
First was the 2011 Nebbiolo 3 Utin (Piemontese for 3 vineyards). These are young Barolo grapes that are not quite up to making Barolo from. Rather than sell them, the cantina makes Nebbiolo from them. As previously related in this blog, Barolo is made from the Nebbiolo grape. The nose is very powerful leading one to believe that maybe the mouth might be a little subdued. Not so! The mouth is full of the flavor of strawberries, one of the best signs of a great Nebbiolo. Highly recommended. Purchased for our cellar (euro 12 per bottle).
Then, the 2008 Barolo. The bottle was open for eight hours when we tasted it. This is their base Barolo, made from the grapes of three diverse vineyards. This wine needs a long rest in the cellar. We got it to open up in the mouth after "working" the glass for at least five minutes. Recommended for those with a great deal of patience.
2008 Barolo Rocchettevino. Another very good Barolo from this producer. It is in three separate pieces (tannin, fruit and acid) at this point. Allow three to five years in your cellar for this to make its appearance. Highly recommended. Purchased for our cellar (euro 29 per bottle).
2008 Barolo Roggeri. A rich tasting Barolo. We chose the Rocchettevino over the Roggeri.
2009 Barolo di Base. An excellent wine! This bottle was opened for us. It, like the 2008, is from three diverse vineyards. Good now but probably better in three to five years. Highly recommended. Purchased for our cellar (euro 22 per bottle).
Barolo 2003. Nose is that of an over mature wine. However, the mouth is very, very nice. Not for sale.
7 October 2014 Yesterday we opened a bottle of the 2011 Nebbiolo 3 Utin. We had prepared a chicken burger with a natural bun for lunch but added a bit of Indian spice to the mix. The wine went very well with the burger. But, we finished only half of the bottle. So, it was recorked and set aside for the today. We did a dish from Udine, a pasta with boiled onions from Sicily seasoned with a Ferrero white wine. Spectacular!! We have pushed out the next bottle to mid-2015 as it was just coming around.
28 February 2015 We opened the next to last bottle of the 2011 Nebbiolo 3 Utin. This is a very good wine. We served it with a simple meal of pasta with our special ragu made with our tomatoes and some ground turkey. It did very well with it. Wine is ready to drink.
24 September 2017 Today for lunch, we had a Pizzocchieri della Vantellina. Vantellina is a valley in Lombardia bordering Switzerland. The dish is a pasta with a predominance of buckwheat flour unlike normal Italian pasta which has a predominance of wheat flour. The dish also has potatoes, spinach, soft cheese like Toma, garlic and is cooked in butter, not olive oil. For this, we opened the bottle of the 2009 3 vineyard Barolo. This is a little better than the normal basic Barolo as the origin of the grapes is specified on the bottle. It was a light Barolo but very enjoyable with the Pizzocchieri. It is ready to drink. Try a bottle if you have it in your cellar. We will continue to drink ours over the next six months.
29 April 2018 Today for lunch, we had a Pizzocchieri della Vantellina. Vantellina is a valley in Lombardia bordering Switzerland. The dish is a pasta with a predominance of buckwheat flour unlike normal Italian pasta which has a predominance of wheat flour. The dish also has potatoes, spinach, soft cheese like Toma, garlic and is cooked in butter, not olive oil. For this, we opened the bottle of the 2008 Rocchettevino Barolo. It is the first bottle we have opened of the four we bought back in 2013. The wine, after being open for at least a half hour, was ready to drink. On opening, it was still in the three pieces that it was when we purchased it but after the aforementioned time, it was quite good. It is not your big, butt grabbing Barolo but it was right for the lunch served. If you have this, open for at least 20 minutes before serving. Goes well with lightly spiced foods.
12 May 2018 Because we will be at La Pergola tomorrow, we decided to have our Sunday bottle of Barolo today with our normal Saturday fish lunch. I chose a bottle of Ciabot Berton's base Barolo 2009, the last one of these in our cellar. Natalya had a piece of salmon that she prepared in her inimitable way and I had one of my favorites, cozze (mussels). She also made some of her famous sauteed red potatoes to go with it. The wine held up well to the fish and really smoothed out after about a half hour. If you have this, let it sit open for about twenty minutes and then serve it. Good with light flavored foods.
29 August 2018 Well fans, 73 years ago today at 1413 in the afternoon in Chicago, Maria Margarita Spallina gave birth to the author of this blog. Not a Sunday as our usual habit but we opened a bottle of Barolo today to celebrate not only my birthday but Natalya's return from visiting her mother in Yekaterinburg, Russia. I even cooked today. We had one of our favorite dishes, the piadina stuffed with organic chicken and vegetables from our garden. The wine, a 2008 Ciabot Berton Rocchettevino, stood up well to the vegetables. We believe that the wine is ready to drink and will not last much longer in our cellar. We have two bottles more and will drink before the end of the year. It is a nice medium bodied Barolo. We recommend it!
16 September 2018 This Sunday, it is my turn to do something out of the ordinary for lunch. I chose an Indian dish called Bombay Biryani which is a dish of vegetables, boneless chicken, yogurt and basmati rice. It is quite spicy so I had to have a relatively older Barolo with a big mouth to stand up to the Biryani. I chose the 2008 Ciabot Berton Rocchettevino which we had tasted recently so I knew it would probably do what I needed it to do. I also chose to use some new glasses that we had just found (perhaps I need to write more about glass selection but I will wait for requests to do something like that) that were made in Slovakia by Rona and purchased in Padova, Italy from Foralberg. If you are interested, they carry the full line of Rona plus most things needed to equip a restaurant. Write me for phone number and contact name. The glass choice was correct as was the wine. We had a very interesting lunch at 1700 on Sunday afternoon as Natalya was working on painting the radiators and I was trying to make the Biryani to my liking. I have some ideas as to how to make the Biryani even more interesting but that will wait for some time. In any case, the wine is ready to drink. Do not dawdle further!
3 February 2019 This is the last bottle of the Rocchettevino 2008 we have from this producer. We have enjoyed their offerings and will consider buying more when the opportunity presents itself. Today's menu was grilled boscaiolo cheese, steamed orata (a local fish) and sauteed red potatoes. The wine is in its final days so it is time to take it from the cellar and enjoy it.
Tasted at the cantina 28 June 2013 Got there finally).
We liked their wines!
First was the 2011 Nebbiolo 3 Utin (Piemontese for 3 vineyards). These are young Barolo grapes that are not quite up to making Barolo from. Rather than sell them, the cantina makes Nebbiolo from them. As previously related in this blog, Barolo is made from the Nebbiolo grape. The nose is very powerful leading one to believe that maybe the mouth might be a little subdued. Not so! The mouth is full of the flavor of strawberries, one of the best signs of a great Nebbiolo. Highly recommended. Purchased for our cellar (euro 12 per bottle).
Then, the 2008 Barolo. The bottle was open for eight hours when we tasted it. This is their base Barolo, made from the grapes of three diverse vineyards. This wine needs a long rest in the cellar. We got it to open up in the mouth after "working" the glass for at least five minutes. Recommended for those with a great deal of patience.
2008 Barolo Rocchettevino. Another very good Barolo from this producer. It is in three separate pieces (tannin, fruit and acid) at this point. Allow three to five years in your cellar for this to make its appearance. Highly recommended. Purchased for our cellar (euro 29 per bottle).
2008 Barolo Roggeri. A rich tasting Barolo. We chose the Rocchettevino over the Roggeri.
2009 Barolo di Base. An excellent wine! This bottle was opened for us. It, like the 2008, is from three diverse vineyards. Good now but probably better in three to five years. Highly recommended. Purchased for our cellar (euro 22 per bottle).
Barolo 2003. Nose is that of an over mature wine. However, the mouth is very, very nice. Not for sale.
7 October 2014 Yesterday we opened a bottle of the 2011 Nebbiolo 3 Utin. We had prepared a chicken burger with a natural bun for lunch but added a bit of Indian spice to the mix. The wine went very well with the burger. But, we finished only half of the bottle. So, it was recorked and set aside for the today. We did a dish from Udine, a pasta with boiled onions from Sicily seasoned with a Ferrero white wine. Spectacular!! We have pushed out the next bottle to mid-2015 as it was just coming around.
28 February 2015 We opened the next to last bottle of the 2011 Nebbiolo 3 Utin. This is a very good wine. We served it with a simple meal of pasta with our special ragu made with our tomatoes and some ground turkey. It did very well with it. Wine is ready to drink.
24 September 2017 Today for lunch, we had a Pizzocchieri della Vantellina. Vantellina is a valley in Lombardia bordering Switzerland. The dish is a pasta with a predominance of buckwheat flour unlike normal Italian pasta which has a predominance of wheat flour. The dish also has potatoes, spinach, soft cheese like Toma, garlic and is cooked in butter, not olive oil. For this, we opened the bottle of the 2009 3 vineyard Barolo. This is a little better than the normal basic Barolo as the origin of the grapes is specified on the bottle. It was a light Barolo but very enjoyable with the Pizzocchieri. It is ready to drink. Try a bottle if you have it in your cellar. We will continue to drink ours over the next six months.
29 April 2018 Today for lunch, we had a Pizzocchieri della Vantellina. Vantellina is a valley in Lombardia bordering Switzerland. The dish is a pasta with a predominance of buckwheat flour unlike normal Italian pasta which has a predominance of wheat flour. The dish also has potatoes, spinach, soft cheese like Toma, garlic and is cooked in butter, not olive oil. For this, we opened the bottle of the 2008 Rocchettevino Barolo. It is the first bottle we have opened of the four we bought back in 2013. The wine, after being open for at least a half hour, was ready to drink. On opening, it was still in the three pieces that it was when we purchased it but after the aforementioned time, it was quite good. It is not your big, butt grabbing Barolo but it was right for the lunch served. If you have this, open for at least 20 minutes before serving. Goes well with lightly spiced foods.
12 May 2018 Because we will be at La Pergola tomorrow, we decided to have our Sunday bottle of Barolo today with our normal Saturday fish lunch. I chose a bottle of Ciabot Berton's base Barolo 2009, the last one of these in our cellar. Natalya had a piece of salmon that she prepared in her inimitable way and I had one of my favorites, cozze (mussels). She also made some of her famous sauteed red potatoes to go with it. The wine held up well to the fish and really smoothed out after about a half hour. If you have this, let it sit open for about twenty minutes and then serve it. Good with light flavored foods.
29 August 2018 Well fans, 73 years ago today at 1413 in the afternoon in Chicago, Maria Margarita Spallina gave birth to the author of this blog. Not a Sunday as our usual habit but we opened a bottle of Barolo today to celebrate not only my birthday but Natalya's return from visiting her mother in Yekaterinburg, Russia. I even cooked today. We had one of our favorite dishes, the piadina stuffed with organic chicken and vegetables from our garden. The wine, a 2008 Ciabot Berton Rocchettevino, stood up well to the vegetables. We believe that the wine is ready to drink and will not last much longer in our cellar. We have two bottles more and will drink before the end of the year. It is a nice medium bodied Barolo. We recommend it!
16 September 2018 This Sunday, it is my turn to do something out of the ordinary for lunch. I chose an Indian dish called Bombay Biryani which is a dish of vegetables, boneless chicken, yogurt and basmati rice. It is quite spicy so I had to have a relatively older Barolo with a big mouth to stand up to the Biryani. I chose the 2008 Ciabot Berton Rocchettevino which we had tasted recently so I knew it would probably do what I needed it to do. I also chose to use some new glasses that we had just found (perhaps I need to write more about glass selection but I will wait for requests to do something like that) that were made in Slovakia by Rona and purchased in Padova, Italy from Foralberg. If you are interested, they carry the full line of Rona plus most things needed to equip a restaurant. Write me for phone number and contact name. The glass choice was correct as was the wine. We had a very interesting lunch at 1700 on Sunday afternoon as Natalya was working on painting the radiators and I was trying to make the Biryani to my liking. I have some ideas as to how to make the Biryani even more interesting but that will wait for some time. In any case, the wine is ready to drink. Do not dawdle further!
3 February 2019 This is the last bottle of the Rocchettevino 2008 we have from this producer. We have enjoyed their offerings and will consider buying more when the opportunity presents itself. Today's menu was grilled boscaiolo cheese, steamed orata (a local fish) and sauteed red potatoes. The wine is in its final days so it is time to take it from the cellar and enjoy it.
Rivetto - Serralunga d'Alba
At dinner the night before this visit, we had a bottle of Rivetto Nebbiolo 2011. We enjoyed it very much so decided to go to the cantina the next day to buy some for our cellar.
The 2011 Nebbiolo is a very good wine. It is drinkable now but will mature in our cellar for another two years. Recommended. Purchased for our cellar (euro 17 per bottle)
Next, the 2010 Barbaresco Ce` Vanin. Very good example of the grape in the nose. A good mouth even though a little smooth for a young wine. The tannins are very evident and may step on the fruit after more time in the cellar. Good wine for food. Drink now.
Next, 2009 Barolo Serralunga d'Alba. Nose decidedly Barolo. Mouth dominated by big tannins, big fruit. Needs five years in the cellar before opening a bottle to see the progression. Highly recommended. Purchased for our cellar (euro 29 per bottle).
Barolo Leon Riserva 2007 was the next offering. Very big tannins, mouth that of the grape. Ready to drink now. Recommended.
Next, 2007 Barolo Briccolina. Very smooth, ready to drink. Highly recommended. euro 98 per bottle.
As a side note to this visit, we had a very nice conversation with all from Rivetto. Especially good was the conversation we had with Ercole, Enrico's father. He related to us the story of how his grandfather hid the production from 1944 (his birth year) in walls because of the German occupation of the area. Regretfully, none of the 1945 (my birth year) survives.
22 April 2016 Today we opened the first of three bottles of the 2011 Nebbiolo. As previously related, it is a very good wine. We served it with a filet of lake perch and fresh asparagus from our garden. The perch was sauteed in olive oil after being dipped in flour infused with curcuma. While some people would not serve fish with red wine, we do not have that restriction. We believe that the wine is ready to drink even though it did change throughout the meal. A fairly closed glass is recommended to maintain the wine throughout your meal.
31 July 2016 We made a lasagna today so we thought that the 2011 Langhe Nebbiolo would go good with it. However, the bottle was corked and we were unable to enjoy the wine. Hopefully, our last bottle of it will be ok.
10 September 2016 Now we "kind of" break from our tradition of writing only about Barolo, Barbaresco and Nebbiolo.
The first wine presented was Rivetto's new Kaskal. This is a Metodo Classico, Extra Brut sparkling wine made only from the tips of the Nebbiolo grappoli (bunches). It is excellent. We had seen Enrico's blog about the wine and were very happy they offered it to us. Purchased for our cellar.
We then tasted the 2012 Serralunga Barolo, 14.5% alcohol. This wine had been open for about 16 hours and had lost a lot of what you would expect to find in the 2012 Barolo. There was very little nose to be noticed. The fruit in the mouth arrived about 15 minutes after we started working the glass. Euro 33 a bottle.
The last Barolo was the 2010 Leon Riserva, 15% alcohol. This is another of Enrico's spectacular wines. The tannins, fruit and acids are very noticeable leaving us to believe that you should put it way in the back of your cellar with a first bottle open date of 2026. Euro 52 a bottle, purchased for our cellar.
As we were loading the wine in our car, Enrico's grandfather, Ercole arrived. We had a "old friends" conversation with him. He is one year older than I am so we have a lot in common. It was very good to see him again!!
5 October 2016 Today is the sixth anniversary of Natalya's arrival in Italy so it is quite occasion for us. We thought to open one of the bottles of Kaskal that we had gotten about three weeks ago to serve with the borscht that Natalya made. The wine is a little hard having been just released. While it is a great wine, we will leave the rest of our bottles in the cellar for at least a year before opening another.
17 October 2016 Today we opened our last (what a pity!) of the 2011 Langhe Nebbiolo. We served it with our typical Monday meal of chicken hamburger on natural bread. But today, we did something a little different with the hamburger. We sauteed some chicken wings in some Sicilian olive oil and then put them on the wood stove in a pan of water to make chicken broth. Then we poured some of the grease from the wings into the pan. We then sauteed the hamburgers in the leftover chicken grease. It was very good with the Nebbiolo complimenting the wine very well. Have the wine? We would suggest that you drink it now. It may last for another month or two but why wait for such good grape juice?
11 November 2018 Today, we opened our last bottle of the 2013 Langhe Nebbiolo. We served it with Boscaiolo cheese as an appetizer, our wood oven baked lasagna and insalata riccia from our garden. It is a good wine. We had expected it to be a little more robust but it did well with the meal. This was the only bottle we had so no further information about the wine is forthcoming.
3 March 2019 Today for lunch, we opened a bottle of the 2009 Rivetto Barolo del Comune di Serralunga d'Álba. It was served with an appetizer of Straciatella cheese on fresh bread, Natalya's borsch, a spinach-ricotta quiche. As you may know, each one of the "Barolo towns"make a different Barolo. This was a bigger wine but still went well with the quiche. Have it in your cellar? Try it now. It is very good!
01 January 2021 For the New Year's Day, we thought that a good bottle of Barolo from the Serralunga area would be good. So, I got out our last bottle of the 2009 Del Comune di Serralunga d'Alba from Rivetto. Since we were quite tired from cooking the day before, we enjoyed the leftovers from yesterday. Again, and this seems to be happening more often because of the lockdown, we are running out of wine that is ready to drink. The wine was very good but in reality, it needed at least another two years before, if we had another bottle, we would open it. Need to go visit the cantina!!
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