When it comes to collecting Barolo—and, for the most part, these are not “pop and pour” wines but rather wines built for aging—there remains a core of well-known blue chips. Conterno, Mascarello, and Rinaldi are among the most enduring names, all of them with a highly capable new generation in place after losing their famous patriarchs.
I still remember when these wines, once undervalued in relation to their French contemporaries, shot up in price when collectors finally figured out what they’d been missing. Now I can’t really afford them, so my question becomes: Who in Barolo should I be investing in? Well, among others, my money is on Davide Rosso and the Giovanni Rosso estate. Today’s wine is one of the first 2014s I’ve tasted and it defies just about everything I’ve heard about this “challenging” vintage: It’s got the concentration and structure for the long haul and the riotous aromatic profile all Barolo lovers crave. And it is still, despite Rosso’s fast-growing reputation in the region, priced right. If your wine collection is in growth mode, jump on some of this; the payoff will be there!
This is not a single-vineyard bottling, but it is a ‘single-village’ bottling, as indicated by the annotation “del Comune di Serralunga d’Alba” on the label. Although the Rosso ‘brand’ is of more recent creation, the family has farmed vineyards in the village of Serralunga since the 1890s, with holdings in prime crus including “Vigna Rionda” and “Cerretta.” They had long sold their fruit to other producers before Giovanni Rosso and his son, Davide, started bottling their own wines in the late-1990s. Theirs is a familiar story in modern-day Barolo, and Davide, who apprenticed in Burgundy with producers such as Jean Grivot and Denis Mortet, took over the winemaking operation in 2001, when he was just 27 years old. He enjoyed several years working side-by-side with his father until Giovanni passed away in 2009; these days, the younger Rosso occupies himself not just with his patrimony in Piedmont but with a new wine project on Mount Etna in Sicily. Davide’s farming practices might best be compared with the French ‘lutte raisonnée’ ('reasoned fight') approach: it is effectively organic except in emergencies.
Today’s wine is a great example of the limitations of vintage reports: Yes, ’14 was a wet and cold year in which some producers affected by sporadic hail chose not to bottle some wines, and yet there were many wines (like this one) that found a path to glory amid the difficulties. Critic Antonio Galloni noted the “enormous degree of variability” among the 2014s he tasted, but added that the best of the ’14s were “some of the most thrilling young Barolos [he had] ever tasted.” Rosso’s 2014 has all the concentration I could want, and, perhaps more important, it has great aromatic lift and good balance, even in its youth.
One thing Rosso makes a point of noting is that he is “not simply a Barolo producer, but a Serralunga producer,” with a dozen discrete vineyard plots throughout this key village. Serralunga is known for a more powerful, mineral-driven style of Barolo, and Rosso does not disappoint with this 2014: It was fermented in concrete vats and aged in used, 50-hectoliter French oak barrels for a minimum of 18 months before bottling, followed by another year-plus in bottle before release, and it is in its youthful, brooding phase right now. In the glass, it’s a deep garnet red flecked with ruby and a hint of orange, with aromas of red and black cherry, mulberry, dried violets and rose petals, graphite, baking spices, licorice, leather, and assorted wild herbs. Nearly full-bodied, with firm but ripe tannins, it has serious mineral depth that drives the long-lasting finish. It is a heady and powerful glass of wine, needing time to unwind in the glass: If you decide to drink one soon, decant it at least an hour before serving in large Burgundy stems at 60-65 degrees, taking care to lay a few others down for future enjoyment. This should be a 20+-year wine, one that is loaded with woodsy savor for pairing with game, mushrooms, and other products of the forest. We’re now in white truffle season in earnest, so if you’ve got the means and the access, this is the wine to pour with them. Enjoy!
