2004 Barolo Le Rocche del Falletto Riserva

I am enamored with the ripeness, spiciness and mushroom character in this wine. This is a big and powerful wine with incredibly chewy tannins and beefy fruit. Think of a house made of bricks. Wait until 2017 if you can keep your hands off of it.

We finished with a beautiful flight of Barolo from the Falletto vineyard in Serralunga. Not surprisingly the highlight was the 2004 Barolo Le Rocche del Falletto, one of the greatest wines Giacosa has ever made. Silky tannins framed a core of elegant fruit in this sublime, emotionally moving Barolo.

Full, deep red. Incredible nose combines red fruits, blood orange, minerals, spices and smoked meat. Sappy, silky and extremely intense yet somehow weightless, with a pristine quality to its fruit and mineral flavors. This saturates every millimeter of the palate with flavor, with the extraordinary rising finish going on for two minutes or more. Again, when I free-associated, the first word that came to my mind was Musigny. There's so much going on in this extremely primary and mineral-driven wine that one is hardly aware of the tannins. I think this will make a compelling drink in just two or three years but will evolve positively for a couple of decades. Giacosa considers this to be his best Barolo of the last ten years.