The estate’s 2001 Barolo La Rocca e La Pira is a big, powerful wine endowed with masses of dark fruit, earthiness, leather, licorice, spices and tobacco. The wine offers tremendous length and persistence on the palate as its inner core of fruit emerges over time. Somewhat reticent at first, the wine needs quite a bit of time to open up. Some tasters might object to the less than clean aromatics but after tasting two bottles of this Barolo I felt the wine had sufficient merits to compensate for those imperfections. The Barolo is made from the estate’s younger vines, with ages ranging from 20-50 years. The wine saw 80 days of maceration on the skins (in wood vats) followed by five years in oak prior to bottling. Anticipated maturity: 2011-2025. This is a fascinating set of wines from Roagna, a historic estate in Barbaresco that is once again gaining the visibility and recognition it deserves. Proprietor Luca Roagna is young, humble and incredibly passionate about preserving his family’s traditional approach to making wine. The estate works with old vines, which are trained to ripen late. In the cellar, macerations are very long and aging takes place primarily in French oak casks. Roagna is one of Italy’s most promising young producers and his future looks to be very bright. This year, as last, I found some of the wines not fully perfect in their aromatics, with notes of woodiness that suggest the wines may be spending too much time in barrel. According to Luca Roagna, these aromas and flavors can be attributed to the new barrels the estate began using around 2000. Still, my sense is that the wines could achieve an entirely different level of quality if a few years of the barrel aging were replaced with time in bottle. Importer: Louis Dressner Selections, New York, NY; tel. (212) 334-8191

The 2001 vintage shows well in this expressive Barolo that does a great job of communicating territory and tradition. Mineral notes play against dried fruit, currants and exotic spice. In the mouth, the wine exhibits pulp and density with excellent power over a compact, lean feel. Drink it with important meat or pasta dishes.——M.L.(4/1/2009)—— 90