Roberto Voerzio Barolo Brunate 1990

13.5% Imported By Bianco-Rosso, WA

Bought on release with sticker, $36.25.

This was impressive right off the bat. For once I think it was better before decanted vs. after. Decanting didn't seem to help this. But its impressive pedigree was obvious right from the beginning. The attack is so striking I almost fell out of my chair. Concentrated and full of flavor, a very poignant nose full of cherry and rose, a palate with cinnamon, cloves, black cherry, structure and more makes for a top notch La Morra experience that is fairly traditional or at least not showing much modern. The middle and the finish was something else though. Muddy and simple, there wasn't much to love. As noted, it didn't improve in the decanter and probably was better directly out of the bottle when it still showed structure. This is the last of my 7 1990 Voerzio's. They showed moments of greatness but never quite hit their stride overall. They were more traditional than modern in style. I think he makes the wine differently after this. I wouldn't be holding this Brunate any longer.

We had the wine with this http://www.gigirosso.com/getcontent.aspx?cID=141&l=en but I made it with dried mushrooms instead of truffles. A winery with better recipes than wine? Some of their recipes are quite good. We had it atop Barolo Tagliolini pasta made with Barolo DOCG wine from I Pecatti di Ciacco La Morra, IT imported by Ritrovo Seattle. I tried forever to get this stuff but the shop was always closed when I was there. Then they moved to an out of the way spot. We all agreed that this was very good pasta, some of the best we'd had. It didn't taste much like Barolo but the texture was fantastic and went extremely well with the pigeon. The bright red color was fun too although helped along by beet juice!

Fraser