Last weekend, on Sunday, the whole family was home for dinner - and that doesn't happen all too often with one kid in Vancouver and one in Kelowna. It was a great excuse to pick up some nice rib eye steaks, lots of mushrooms, a few cobs of fresh corn while the season is waning, and some wine to make the meal just a little bit special.
After pouring over the collection of wine that I had in the 'ready to drink now' rack, I decided to try the Barolo I had purchased at Costco in the US a month ago.
Barolo is an Italian wine with a bit of a reputation. It is a grape that I have heard referred to as the Cabernet Sauvignon of Italy - rich, structured and up to a thick, rare steak. It is also famous for tasting of 'tar and roses' (not Guns and Roses) and I was intrigued by the idea of trying this wine. I had only tried a Nebbiolo grape once, and that was during my first class of my WSET course.
The wine I had bought was a 2011 Fontana Fredda Serralunga D'Alba Barolo which cost around $30 US at Costco but is listed in Vivino at $50. I did find a 2012 on the BC Liquor web site for $45. The wine is from Alba in the Piedmont area of Italy and is made from Nebbiolo grapes.
I didn't know what to expect - although, maybe I did. I think I expected this wine to be a lot like a Cabernet Sauvignon. But it was not!
My first hint that this was not what I had thought was right away when I decanted the wine. The colour was not dark and deep but, instead, was more ruby and light - very much like a Pinot Noir or a Grenache. This continued to be noticeable after I had poured the wine into glasses and examined the colour in the wine glass.
On the nose, there was cherry, black currant, and, yes, roses! It was quite odd to smell roses in a wine! The aroma had a medium intensity.
Finally, on the palate, I tasted the same red and black fruits with the addition of raspberries and black plums as well as some leather. And then, there it was, tar! That tar combined with the darker fruit gave this wine quite a bit of a punch - something that I didn't taste at first but by the third sip, I was impressed with the impact of the wine.
The Barolo looks like it's kind of thin and has a rose scent to it so I really was fooled into thinking that it was going to be a disappointment. After tasting it, I started to adjust my opinion. When I had a chuck of steak with the Barolo, I realized that this was a great pairing. The tannins weren't all that strong but the flavours in the wine really complemented the flavours in the steak.
Overall, I would say that it was balanced, had a medium finish, was OK in intensity, had a complex taste and was expressive for a Barolo - as I said, the Nebbiolo grape, which Barolo is made from, is famous for its 'tar and roses' taste and I clearly tasted it. This wine would be rated as Very Good.
Finally, would I buy it again?
I would definitely drink it again, especially if given a bottle, but dropping $50 at the liquor store would be a little more difficult. Maybe next time I'm in Costco in the US, I'll pick one up - or maybe I need to travel to Piedmont area in Northwest Italy and go to Alba and then buy some!
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