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.