The estate’s NV Barolo Chinato is a winner. Roagna told me he spent several years researching the right combination of aromatic herbs, and that work has paid off handsomely as this is a gorgeous, serious Chinato. The base wine is a 10-year old Barolo Riserva, which gives the Chinato an unsually soft-textured, generous personality. All of the typical notes of sweet herbs, cinnamon, cardamom, flowers, anise and baking spices are layered into a sweet, expansive expression of fruit. This is a Chinato that is much more wine-like than digestif-like. It is a great effort. Anticipated maturity: 2008-2018 (if kept unopened).
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
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