2019 Barolos, Part 1

 One has to be sceptical when the latest vintage is hailed as one of the greatest, as this happens so often. However, after tasting many Barolos from 2019, I have to emphatically say most Barolos from this year are fantastic. It was a cooler year than some recent years, but not cold or miserable. People talk about this as a classic vintage, quite tannic, but not as big as 2016, more expressive than 2013. This post covers tastings at Massolino, Chiara Boschis, and Paolo Scavino.

The first taste of the 2019 Barolos is the Massolino Barolo, also called Classico, because this is a blend of several vineyards. On the palate of this mainly Serralunga wine, is a bright flavour of red and black cherries. This is quite a linear wine, with a beautifully expressive long finish. This is an important wine for Massolino with a production of 85,000 bottles, compared with all single vineyard wines of 45,000 bottles (95 points).

The first single vineyard wine I taste is the Margheria. This is an unusual wine for Serralunga, as the soil of this vineyard is sandy, whereas most of the rest in this subregion is clay dominant. This translates into the wine with floral and perfumed notes. The finish does not quite match the pleasant flavour profile (93 points). The 2019 Massolino Parafada is quite different. The wine is darker and more powerful. This is a masculine expression of Barolo with firm and slightly coarse tannins - big, but balanced (96 points). I then had the priviledge of tasting a Vigna Rionda, one of the legendary wines of the Barolo region. As this wine gets an additional year of maturation, I was offered the 2017, not a great vintage, but the wine showed well. This wine was very elegant, with silky tannins, and at peace with itself. It would have rated higher if the fruit concentration had been deeper (96 points).

The second stop was at Chiara Boschis. I know Chiara well, and after 40 years of winemaking, she is just as enthusiastic and committed to her sustainability causes as ever. The first Barolo was the 2019 Chiara Boschis Cannubi Barolo. This turned out to be the wine of the vintage for me. The soil for this wine is 60% sand, and the quality of the soil is poor. This works well, as Nebbiolo likes to struggle. The wine tastes of red plum, orange rind and truffle. It is a very sensual wine, with some nervy energy. Silky tannins lead to a mineral and long finish (98 points). The 2019 Mosconi is quite a different kind of wine. It is located in the southern part of Monforte, as opposed to Cannubi in the Barolo subregion. Here the soil is rich clay. This soil translates into a masculine wine, slightly fat in the mouth, with dark cherry, mushroom, and mocca flavours.The tannins are a little angular at this time, and the alcohol a little higher, but I have no doubt that the elements will integrate well (96 points). Finally, the 2019 Via Nuova is what others would call a Classico. This wine is composed of seven vineyards, three in Barolo, two in Serralunga, and two in Monforte. As a mixture of the two previous wines, I felt it lacked the distinction of the other two. It was still a very good wine (94 points).

The final stop on this day was at Paolo Scavino

Paolo Scavino produces about 200,000 bottles per year, 60% Barolo, from 30ha of vineyards, and 8 of the 11 Barolo communes.The 2019 Paolo Scavino Classico comes from 9 vineyards which are dedicated to this blend. The fruit is quite pure, with fresh energy and fine tannins (95 points).

The first single vineyard wine is the 2019 Bricco Ambrogio from Roddi. This wine is quite fruity and soft, with fine tannins, but a slightly short finish. I would not pay for this single vineyard wine (92 points). The 2019 Monvigliero from Verduno, and the most northern Barolo vineyard, is a step up. This vineyard is near the river, where fog is frequent. The fruits are darker, the wine more linear, and the tannins tighter (94 points). The 2019 Ravera from Novello is almost at the opposite end of the Barolo region in the south. The vineyard is situated on the top of a hill at 420 meters elevation. In addition, the eastern exposure means this vineyard is not as hot as most others. There is more acidity in this wine, minerality, and firm tannins, but it comes at the expense of some fruit intensity (94 points).

My favourite wine in the line-up was the 2019 Prapò from Serralunga. Only 5000 bottles of this wine were produced. It shows the expected masculinity of Serralunga. It is a strong wine of dark cherry flavours. The tannins are firm, and the wine is in balance with a long finish. This is a wine for the cellar (97 points). The Cannubi wine is no longer produced, as the lease ran out in 2018. The best known single vineyard wine is now the 2019 Bric dël Fiasc from Castiglione Falletto, the mothership if you like. In terms of soil, it has a bit of everything: sand, clay, limestone. Red and black cherry flavours sit on top of a chalky but also silky tannin structure (96 points).

I did not mention it for every wine, but purity and elegance are the hallmarks of this Estate, in my view.