Oddero Barolo 1978

13.5% Imported by Rare Wine Co, CA

Oddero is a longtime, traditional Barolo winery with extensive holdings in great vineyards. The winery recently split into two.

I believe this wine is a blend of their vineyards and before they started producing single vineyard wine. I read somewhere the mix of vineyards but can't find it now - I think it was a La Morra (Santa Maria/Bricco Chieso?)/Serralunga/Castiglione blend.

This wine came to the front of the line because I believed it had a poor history and had been abused along the way. On the contrary, it was from Rare Wine and the bottle looked very clean. Definitely some seepage under the capsule that smelled horribly oxidized. The cork was soaked to the top on all sides and the cork was fairly spongy. Surprisingly, the cork came out in one piece. Unsurprisingly, the wine smelled oxidized. Surprisingly, by the time I poured it into the decanter it no longer smelled oxidized!

Decanted 5 hours.

"Great vineyard blend. Concentrated. Strong nose. Fantastic wine. Autumn. Classic. So balanced and smooth. Cool with menthol flavors. Poignant rose nose. Autumn in a glass. Old oak. Sweet. Intense nose. Smooth/rich/?. Dry with tobacco and black cherry. Tannic. Very cool. What a great blend. Super smooth black cherry".

This wine had a complex interplay of flavors - some of which were new to me and I couldn't quite put my finger on them. I've had a number of 1978's but this is only one of two that really fulfilled the promise of the vintage for me. Excellent wine and more on the balanced/elegant side than the massively powerful side. This wine should keep for a long time but it's a good time to drink it now.


From an interview here (Well worth reading for additional info): https://openingabottle.com/oddero-barolo-with-a-generational-perspective/

"In addition to rejecting the modernist vinification processes for Barolo and Barbaresco that arose in the 1980s and 1990s, Giacomo was also hesitant to produce single-vineyard bottlings, which had become — and continue to be — fashionable. It took the near-perfect 1982 vintage to convince him it was time to release a single-vineyard Barolo, but even then it was from just one vineyard: Rocche di Castligione. Three years later, he bottled the Vignarionda and Bussia separately, but all of his holdings in Brunate and Villero — by then famous vineyards in their own right — went into the blend."


Thanks
Fraser


Attachments
Oddero Barolo 1978.JPG




Edited by fraser (03-02-2019 09:40:15)