Giuseppe Mascarello e Figlio Barolo Monprivato Riserva Ca d’Morissio 2014 750ml

The Mascarello family and the Monprivato cru have been linked for centuries, since before the discovery of America, as family legend tells it. The current configuration of the family purchased it from Mauro Mascarello’s grandfather in 1904. It seems to me that the DNA of the people who farm it and the site itself are inexorably intertwined. With so much experience at their backs, it’s no wonder that this wine shines despite a vintage that delivered quite a few curveballs with lower than average temperatures and above average rainfall during the most delicate phases in the vineyard. The 2014 Barolo Monprivato Riserva Cà d’Morissio is a wine of infinite grace and harmony. The style is delicate, almost fragile, and streamlined for sure. But the bouquet delivers pretty notes of cherry, cassis, cinnamon, licorice, mint, violets, crushed stone and so much more. The family tells me that the special combination of mint and violet that appears so readily on this wine is due to the Michet clone of Nebbiolo featured here. The finish is long and graceful, and you’ll notice that pretty freshness too. This is a beauty, and all told, a very special wine.

• Country: Italy
• Region: Piedmont
• Appellation: Barolo
• Size: 750ml
• Color: Red

Varietal

Nebbiolo

The Nebbiolo grape varietal is widely understood to be the fruit responsible for Italy’s finest aged wines. However, its popularity and reliability as a grape which gives out outstanding flavors and aromas has led it to be planted in many countries around the world, with much success. These purple grapes are distinguishable by the fact that they take on a milky dust as they begin to reach maturity, leading many to claim that this is the reason for their unusual name, which means ‘fog’ in Italian. Nebbiolo grapes produce wines which have a wide range of beautiful and fascinating flavors, the most common of which are rich, dark and complex, such as violet, truffle, tobacco and prunes. They are generally aged for many years to balance out their characteristics, as their natural tannin levels tend to be very high.