As a rule, Oddero’s “Vignarionda” Barolo Riserva is released 10 years after the vintage year. That’s about twice the minimum aging period for a riserva as required by law, but the Odderos believe it is worth it—and I couldn’t agree more. They showed the patience we probably wouldn’t have, then gifted us with a ready-aged, fully realized Barolo classic in winery-direct condition!
All we need to do is pull the cork and strap in for the sensory thrill ride. If that sounds as good to you as it does to me, well, it should: This is one of Barolo’s greatest estates operating at the top of its game. For as long as I’ve been working in wine, Oddero has been a Barolo benchmark—but, in my experience, their recent releases have truly reached another level. They are known as “traditionalists,” producing wines that are built to age without any heavy ‘makeup’ from new oak barrels, and if you want a master class in the endlessly complex aromatic profile of Barolo’s Nebbiolo grape, you couldn’t pick a more ideal wine. In a generous vintage, only about 3,000 bottles of this soul-stirring red are produced, so I consider us extremely fortunate to get our hands on a few. Take up to four today and do it quickly, because we have precious little to share!
As I’ve noted in previous Oddero offers, this family-run estate is also a “fempire”—Mariacristina Oddero has been at the helm here for some time now, and is assisted by her niece, Isabella, and her son, Pietro (the seventh generation to join the family business). Mariacristina’s great-grandfather, Giacomo, was one of the early legends of Barolo: born in 1847, he inherited a small property in the hamlet of Santa Maria, near La Morra, and was a shrewd assessor of vineyard sites. He built up a collection of top Nebbiolo parcels; was one of the first to bottle and sell wines with the name ‘Barolo’ on them; and was involved in mapping and ‘delimiting’ what would become the Barolo DOCG. His grandson, also named Giacomo (and Maria Cristina’s father), brought the Oddero name to prominence in the modern era, helping them to become one of the larger landowners in the zone. Today they organically farm about 35 hectares of vineyards in both Barolo and Barbaresco, with pieces of great cru vineyards in La Morra (“Brunate” and their home vineyard, “Bricco Chiesa”), Castiglione Falletto (“Villero”; “Bricco Fiasco”), Monforte (“Vigna Mondoca,” within the larger “Bussia” vineyard), and Serralunga (today’s “Vignarionda”). This is without a doubt one of the best-equipped properties in all of Barolo. That their wines remain such good values is a great piece of good fortune for all of us.
Located in the village of Serralunga d’Alba and enjoying a full-south exposure, the Vignarionda cru is famous—notorious, even—for producing perhaps longest-lived Barolo wines of all. Whether it’s written on labels as “Vignarionda” or “Vigna Rionda,” this vineyard represents the quintessence of Barolo from the commune of Serralunga: powerful, board, dark-toned, firmly tannic. The soils of Serralunga are a rockier combination of grey marl and sandstone in comparison to more clay-rich soils in the western part of the DOCG area, and this, combined with the all-day sun exposure the vineyard enjoys—it is a rounded, crest-of-the-hill type of site—makes for some seriously concentrated Nebbiolo. The Odderos age their Vignarionda for 40 months in 35-hectoliter Austrian oak casks, following that with an extended period of bottle age in their cool cellars.
And, as was the case with the 2011 we offered some time ago, this ’09 is a conversation-piece bottle right smack in its prime drinking window. The word I used for the ’11 was “kaleidoscopic,” and I feel the same way about the ’09, although I’d say it is, as you might expect, more obviously mature and ready to drink right now. In the glass, it’s a medium garnet red with typical Nebbiolo brick-orange accents at the rim, with explosive aromas of Marasca cherries, blood orange, black plum, pulverized stones, tobacco, tar, and a hint of smoke. Like all the greatest Barolos, it is full-bodied but in a unique way—these are not bulky, heavy-extract wines, they are lean, wiry endurance athletes. If I were to acquire a few of these bottles, I don’t think they’d last past the next year or two, but if you were inclined to continue cellaring some, it will continue to evolve positively until 2030. But again, it’s in a great place now, so give it a careful decant (watching for sediment) about 20 minutes before serving in Burgundy stems. I know I say this a lot, but one of the Piedmontese classics is really the only way to go when it comes to a food pairing: braised short ribs; risotto with truffles or wild mushrooms; or maybe the wintry fonduta in the recipe attached. For those of you enjoying this wine some cold night in January, I salute you—this is Winter wine done right!
