Actually, my wife is making both a pizza and a calzone ;^)
My favorite of the three wines on opening is the Produttori, but the 2005 Santa Caterina is drinking great right now as well. Good way to start the weekend!
Black cherry fruit on the nose, with a background note of tar.
Lively on the palate - in fairness, the last bottle I tried of this didnāt show nearly as well, so a little bottle variation here. Decent acidity framing ripe black & red fruit on the palate. I would place Corinoās style in the modernist camp, but at 20 years of age, no noticeable wood at this point.
2004 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco- Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barbaresco (4/16/2021)
Off this bottle, I think the wine is now sitting squarely on itās plateau of maturity. No longer drinking young, but with plenty of time in front of it as well. Good acidity to provide some lift on the palate, nice persistence, with some tertiary notes starting to show on the nose. I know Iāve said this before, but you really wonder how Produttori is able to stuff so much wine enjoyment into such a modestly priced bottle. This is probably the red wine analog of Pepiereās Clos des Briords in that regard.
2005 Guido Porro Barolo Vigna S. Caterina- Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo (4/16/2021)
Great nose here, with sweet & sour cherry fruit and menthol. More red fruited on the palate, but has a slightly drying edge on the finish. Thatās just a minor nit, though - this is a nice glass of wine. In terms of how vintages are drinking currently for Barolo, 2005 is in a really nice place.
IIRC we might have tasted some of the 2004 SVD Produttoriās at your house? There were a lot of them! Give them more time than the normale?
Not too long ago I enjoyed the last of 3 bottles of 1998 Corino Arborina and it struck me as fairly clean (i.e.: not rustic), but judicious with the wood.
So true. I think part of the answer is that demand for the crus is not unlimited, so a lot of good juice ends up in the normale, which represents more than half of the production.
Rich, we consumed ā99, 2000 and 2001 SVDās at my house, but no 2004ās. As you might recall, the 2001 vintage in particular was still very young/primary.
2004 already now at its plateau of maturity? Even though 2004 is not a vintage with the most aging potential (2006, Iām looking at you), it sounds really weird that at mere 15 years of age itād be already as good as it gets. After all, in my PdB tasting last year, 2006 was still painfully young and 1996 was only getting close to its peak. Even 1982 showed some potential for future development and only the vintages from the 1970ās and 1960ās start to feel they are not going to develop any further. And I donāt mean theyād be fully tertiary and one foot in the grave, but actually on their plateau of maturity.
I havenāt tasted the 2004 vintage, but based on my experience on Produttori, Iād imagine vintages like 2009, 2003 and 2002 might have reached their full potential and be incapable of evolving any further. Itās sad if a great vintage like 2004 would be as good as it gets now.
I guess it depends on how one defines āas good as it getsā, Otto.
Do I think that the 2004 Normale will continue to develop for another 10 or 20 years - sure. But will it be objectively better then than it is today? That Iām not so sure of. Different, for sure, but better, I donāt know. I would call this wine drink or hold - I still have some that I donāt feel compelled to drink immediately, but itās not going to cause me any pain if I continue to stand up a bottle for consumption as I come across it in the cellar.
So maybe this is just a difference in how we prefer our wine - I just checked my CT notes, and the last time I tried the 2006 was this past August - and while it still showed young, I enjoyed the bottle and certainly wouldnāt have described it as āpainfully youngā.
The painful part was because of its structure. While it certainly showed more age than its 2010ās peers, the tannic structure was still on a completely another level, showing very little if any sense of resolution. The younger vintages seemed much younger in style, yet at the same time more accessible, whereas the 2006 was still tough as a leather boot with very assertive tannins and rather tightly-knit fruit. Feels like it had still the most way to go before its peak compared to the other vintages.
