Me and 1980 Brunate Le Coste

Recently I got the chance to sit at very special tasting in our office/Warehouse in Ronkonkoma, NY with a few of our sales people from around the country, my sales manager Gary Long and Mr Vinifera Dominic Nocerino. Dominic was in a festive mood for the holidays and opened some amazing bottles of wines. Probably the best line-up I have ever got to taste. These were wines from Dominics personal collection and not all wines that Vinifera has imported. We started with a Canaicchio di Sopra 2004 Brunello di Montalcino-it was great but obviously young. We tasted through a few spotlight wines including a 1997 Casanova di Neri and a great 1990 Brunello that no one at the table recognized the producer-this probably being my second favorite of the night. But who remembers the second placer? After, tasting a 1988 Giacosa Falleto Dominic opend a 1980 Giuseppe Rinaldi Baraolo-Brunate Le Coste. This wine stole the gold in seconds. It was so supple and rich with flowery components on the nose. The pallete delivered and really I expected it as soon as we knew the wine (Dominic was blind-tasting us on a few), but the anticipation did not fail me. It was the gold of the bunch and I will never forget that wine! It stole my heart and I now put it as my favorite wine ever tasted. So if you get a chance to taste his wines after 10+ years on the market don't miss the chance. Or go buy a bottle and let it rest. You will not be disappointed! I am still carrying around the cork as a good luck charm.

Here is a little info on Rinaldi and his wines:

Giuseppe (or Beppe as his friends call him) Rinaldi makes two Barolos, both of which are made from blends of grapes from two vineyards. “I don’t believe in the idea of labeling vineyards as first-class, second-class, third-class and so forth,” Rinaldi explains. “In the past, we always made Barolo by blending grapes from different vineyards with different characteristics and positions. For example, we would use grapes from La Morra and Barolo to give elegance, and grapes from Serralunga or Castiglione Falletto to give structure. The resulting wine had a balance of acidity, body and tannins with a lot of overall harmony. That is the real tradition. It is no coincidence that in very hot years like 2000 and 2003, the best wines come from so-called ‘second-class’ vineyards.”Rinaldi’s two Barolos are Brunate/LeCoste and Cannubi(San Lorenzo)/Ravera. The better known of the wines is the Brunate/Le Coste, which is available in larger quantities. The wine is made from a blend of about 60% Brunate fruit and 40% Le Coste fruit. The less well known, though no less important, wine is the Cannubi(San Lorenzo)/Ravera, which is produced in much smaller quantities and is therefore harder to find. The vines at Cannubi are in the San Lorenzo section, where soils are sandy and the wines generally lighter in color, and more delicate and aromatic in flavor.The Barolos are made in a rigorously traditional fashion. Fermentation and maceration take place in a 100-year-old open top wood vat for 20-30 days, without temperature control or the use of selected yeasts. The wines are aged for three and a half years exclusively in cask. In most vintages the Brunate/Le Coste is the bigger, rounder, more masculine wine while the Cannubi(San Lorenzo)/Ravera is typically the more aromatic, feminine and accessible of the two Barolos.