WTN: Oh Rio, Rio dance across the Rio Grande

[David M. Bueker]

2007 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco Riserva Rio Sordo - Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barbaresco (11/4/2020)
Dangerous admission - I like riper/richer vintages from Barbaresco. I like the fruit to overlay the tannins, making the wines pleasurable rather than painful. The 2007 Rio Sordo has a lovely overlay of cherry fruit that buffers the still strong tannins. It has weight to spare for further aging. There’s no risk of it drying out. At worst it will become an elegant dowager. At best it will retail a regal air, and also be engaging company for the entire evening. Right now it’s a leader in waiting, a little rough on the edges, but polished when it’s being watched. While nobody was looking I drank the whole bottle.

Good explanation.

[Jenise]

At worst it will become an elegant dowager. At best it will retail a regal air, and also be engaging company for the entire evening. Right now it’s a leader in waiting, a little rough on the edges, but polished when it’s being watched. While nobody was looking I drank the whole bottle.

Maybe my favorite TN from you ever.

Rio Sordo has always been the hardest to find in our market - I only have one vintage.

I am planning a vertical tasting of various Produttori from 1989 on, but we just went into a two week (for a start) isolation decree here for Covid due to a sudden upswing - probably due to the younger people being fed up and ignoring restrictions by having large parties and such resulting in a bump in new cases, so the tasting may be postponed.

[David M. Bueker]

Rio Sordo has always been the hardest to find in our market - I only have one vintage.

Odd. Paje is the hardest for me. I tend not to buy Rio Sordo often, focusing on a few favorites in most vintages, Ovello, Montestefano, Rabaja and Asili.

The rarer ones include Muncagota, Moccagatta (never been sure what the relation is of one to the other or if they are just similar names) Montefico and Paje. I'm up to almost 9 cases of the various wines so figure I better start doing some comparative tastings, but I have to do some research on whether they changed vineyard names or just made some in some years and not in others.

[David M. Bueker]

Muncagotta and Mocagatta are the same wine. They had to change the name several years ago in some sort of trademark dispute.

The Riservas are either all made or all not made. This is why 2006 ended up with no Riservas, as one or two were borderline, so the team decided to skip them.

Thanks David - that solves that one for me.