February 5, 2010
1986 : Terrific Tiger Offers
Last week, we highlighted a few great wines from the Tiger Year, 1998--this week we're going back even further in time to feature wines from another terrific Tiger year, 1986. These wines are drinking beautifully now, but are also cellaring in the short term. Offering yet another reason why the Year of the Tiger is worthy of celebration all year long.
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Bruno Giacosa Barolo Falletto Riserva 1986
For more than sixty years, Bruno Giacosa, the Langhe's most consistent producer, has made some of Italy's greatest Barolos and Barbarescos in the traditional Piemontese style. His success is based on his painstaking selection of grapes. In poor vintages, Giacosa sells his fruit in bulk; in exceptional vintages, he honors the wine with the coveted red label Riserva, as he has done here. The Falletto Riserva includes grapes from the famed Rocche del Falletto plot (a small area of old vines on top of the Falletto slope), making it particularly attractive to collectors.
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Grattamacco Rosso 1998
As its fellow Super-Tuscans from the house of Ornellaia, Grattamacco is known for delivering remarkable constancy—yet another example of a premier producer whose efforts are not compromised by aberrant vintages. It knew exactly what it was before Super-Tuscans came to be.
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Bruno Giacosa Barbaresco Santo Stefano Riserva 1998
Among the best Barbarescos produced by this devoted traditionalist. A cellar staple—this wine will easily age for the next two decades. It’s all about, licorice, sweet tobacco, red fruit and balance. Drink and watch it evolve.
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Tenuta dell'Ornellaia Masseto 1998
Over the last several years, Toscana has emerged as a bastion of high-calibre Merlot. Foremost among these names is Masseto, Tenuta dell’Ornellaia’s monovarietal Merlot. Despite having debuted only in the 1986 vintage, Masseto is working on establishing the epic mystique of the storied Château Pétrus. The simple fact is that Masseto’s past—however recent—provides just as compelling a testament to the wine's splendor as the genesis of Pétrus. The 1998 Masseto is opulent and expansive, and offers ripe dark fruit along with secondary notes of tobacco, The '98 could benefit from further cellaring, with anticipated maturity expected from 2008-2018.
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