I pulled this out of storage yesterday and served it with lamb loin chops. Decanted about 45 minutes before we sat down, and then consumed over an hour and a half or two hours.
Quite approachable from the first taste immediately after opening, even without food. There’s ample tannin, but also a warmth and lots of fruit. Over dinner, it opened up. There’s a plushness on the palate – a soft, ripe fruitiness – that I assume is the vintage speaking. It’s a great match for the lamb and even with my improvised succotash of fava beans, baby beets and baby carrots in butter and white wine, which I feared might not work with the tannins.
Very little tertiary development on the nose. Just a tiny bit of sour cherries and a touch of rose hips.
The wine isn’t terribly complex at this stage, and I don’t know if it will ever really blossom on the nose, given the ripeness. But it sure gave a lot of pleasure for the price ($25 in 2009). I have five more bottles. I feel no rush to drink them, but won’t hesitate to do so if I’m in the mood for a good everyday Barbaresco.
One measure of how good it was: My wife stole the last pour from the decanter.
I’d give it about 89, which on my scale makes it just fine.
I didn’t buy much either, but did pick up a case of the riservas being moved at a good price by the local distributor. really pretty charming balanced wines that clearly are drinking well early, and I think will do well over at least the midterm.
For the budget-minded traveler, my brother and his wife use an online residence swapping service, both for this country and Europe. They’ve done it about a dozen times and they’ve been happy with the results – their accommodations, whether house or apartment, have been fine and reasonably convenient, and have included the owner’s car, and their own house has never been left a mess or their car wrecked. Nothing on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, but fine for their expectations.
They live in Cambridge, Mass. so it’s no doubt easier for them to find co-swappers than if they lived in BFE.
06 would have been a good year to collect this wine as no Grand Cru was declared that year so the basic was essentially made up of GC Grape. I am half way through a case of it and have enjoyed every bottle.
That’s not quite true. There were multiple lots and some of the earlier ones were made from wine selected from the outset for the normale bottling. After some of that had been bottled, the winery decided there was too much single-vineyard wine in the market, so they then began blending the lots originally intended for the cru bottlings. So there are varying amounts of the single-vineyard lots in the various normale bottlings for 2006. There was a long thread here when the wine first hit the market with people trying to suss out which lots to buy.
Thank you for the information. I didn’t read the thread. Do you know if there was an easy/fast rule in determining which lot(s) were pure normale and which were single-vineyard bottlings?
As I recall, there were some conflicting accounts, but several people in that thread (which I just found) had researched it in some depth. I don’t have time to go back over it.
Can concur, with a little Audouzing ahead of time. From last month:
"2005 Produttori di Barbaresco Barbaresco Asili
I Audouzed this in the morning and put the cork back in. Gorgeous bouquet–roses and cream and meat and dark juicy fruit. Excellent—tannins brace the cherry, blackcurrant, plum and leather. Finish goes on for a long time. It’s damned good, we’ll just leave it at that. #2 tonight "
Popped a 2005 tonight to pair with grilled ribeyes.
Balsam, black cherries, plums, rich loamy woodland notes, black tea, mild dried flowers and a trace of anise. Lovely integrated fruit up front. Excellent balanced acidity. The tannins are still grippy, fairly rustic yet cooperative. 16 years young and no signs of slowing down. Not much tertiary development. Enjoyable length. No heat or other faults. Definitely a food wine and paired beautifully with the steak and roasted squash. It doesn’t deliver the grace and style of top notch Barbaresco but it’s quite a charmer. Such a ridiculous value in its day.