2007 Vietti Barolo Castiglione

Palish bright red. Scented nose offers red cherry, mint and an ineffable floral perfume. Juicy, intense and delineated, with lovely orange peel lift to its sweet red fruit and floral flavors. The finish coats the mouth with dusty, fine tannins. Remarkably harmonious for a base-level Barolo made from 5 or 6 of the family's 15 Barolo crus. (ST)

A wine with a solid core of ripe berry fruit with cedar undertones. Full and chewy. Needs time to open. So much gorgeous fruit. Give it three to four years of bottle age.

Luca Currado's 2007 Baroli are every bit as impressive from bottle as they were from cask. Interestingly, Vietti is one of the few producers where the house style and vineyard nuances are just as evident as vintage character. Although the 2007s are gorgeous today, most of the wines shut down quickly in the glass, suggesting they may be headed for a period of stubbornness. All of the wines now see a fairly length period of several weeks of contact on the skins, followed my malolactic fermentation in French oak barrels and aging in large, Slavonian oak casks. Always curious to explore, Currado continues to make small adjustments to vinification, including an experimental 2010 Barolo made with a strictly traditional approach that may end up being bottled only in magnum. I think it is fair to say readers will be stunned by the quality of the wines that are emerging from this family run property in Castiglione Falletto. The 2007 Barolo Castiglione deftly balances the open, radiant personality of the vintage with considerable underlying structure. Warm, dense and full-bodied, the 2007 Barolo Castiglione flows effortlessly across the palate with generous fruit and fabulous overall balance. The wine was even better when I tasted it from bottle a few months later. It is another overachieving wine from Vietti.