- I Gave This a 9.5, Terrific Value Under $55
- Really Pretty, Super Floral Nose
- Complex Cherries
- Very Nuanced
- Insane Florals
- Licorice and Dried Tea Leaves
- Tar, Leather
- Fresh and Dried Roses
- Tiny Red and Black Cherry Intensity
- Terrific Palate
- Supremely Elegant
- Wonderful Red Cherry Fruit
2017 Olivero Mario Barolo "Vigna Unite"
- I Gave This a 9.5/9.6 - Crazy Value Under $40
- A Brilliant, Stunningly Beautiful Bottle of Barolo
- Powerful, Dense and Ageworthy
- Wonderful Nose
- Really, Really Dense
- Dark Berry Fruits
- Tar, Some Chocolate Tons of Nebbiolo Spice
- Sick, Sick Detailed Florals
- Some Dried Petals, Fresh Petals
- Cuban Tobacco, Dark Cherry Fruit
- Gorgeous Palate
- Stunning Red and Intense Black Berry Fruit
- Sweet Leather Taste
- wild Blackberries
- Amazing Juiciness
- Terrific Grace and Power
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the structure to age for decades and naturally many many Fass Selections’s clients went very long on 2016. Personally I wouldn’t touch them till 2025 at the earliest. Great vintages are great of course but a large factor of what makes them great is their ability to improve over decades which the 16’s seemed poised to do. What if I told you a producer of ours who we discovered in the 2016 vintage made better 17s than 16’s? 17 was a difficult vintage which only means the winemakers has to really focus and make the wines and not have the classic good vintage trope “the wines make themselves.” A difficult vintage is the true test of a winemaker and Lorenzo Olivero has passed with flying colors as his 2017’s Trump his 2016’s. He has also confirmed this himself. This is not fabulist hyperbole on my part. Below is what he wrote me.
Honestly, I do not know why my Barolo 2017 looks better than others do. The summer 2017 was hot and dry up to the beginning of September (1st or 2nd September we got a refreshing rain in the night) and the grapes were great.
I am generally not afraid of warm and dry vintages and maybe I was capable in interpreting the harvest better than someone else. I picked early and maybe this helped to keep the freshness and fruitiness in the wines. Also the ageing in wood was nice and I introduced a new balance between barriques and tonneau of 500 liters.
A Willing Suspension of Disbelief
I remember learning about the concept of a wiling suspension of disbelief in high school. It's the idea that when you are reading or watching a work of fiction, you willingly don't question that parts of it may be between highly unlikely and impossible. The hero shoots 100 bullets in a row from a pistol... no problem. he couple runs across each other the next day in a city of 2 million people and they get back together. Sure, fine.
There are certain wines that almost require a willing suspension of disbelief. Winemaking is difficult. The more power and concentration you have, the harder it is to get balance and a platform for secondary flavors. You can have issues with alcohol flavors. It's hard.
But sometimes you get wine that just nails is across the board. Big. Fruit. Rich. Dense. Complex with oodles of secondary flavors. You almost have to pause mid mouthful and question whether this is really happening to you. That you perceive all pleasure and no flaws. That a sip of wine could be this good.
I've only tasted two vintages from this producer. And maybe he's not quite this brilliant every year. But he has been for two year in a row now. But this vintage (the challenging 2017) of his wines is brilliant. And no one has heard of him so these wines are dirt cheap for the quality.
The Wines
Up first is the 2017 Olivero Mario Barolo Bricco Ambrogio for $49.99 each on a 4-pack.
Really pretty nose that is super floral. Complex cherries. Confectionary aromas. Minty. Menthol. Really pretty and very nuanced. Bright and high toned. Insane florals. So aromatic. Wow. Just mesmerizing. Tar, leather but fresh and dried roses just dominant in a very good way. Some licorice and dried tea leaves as well. Very complex and appealing. Autumn air and leaves and insane nuance and lift to the nose. There is a tiny red and black cherry intensity to the nose as well that is just so vivid and detailed.
Wow, what a terrific palate. Tannic but sweet and super juicy. Really complex and deep. Lovely balance and freshness. This is really, really close to the 16. What a talent. Finish is a mile long. Very very impressed. This tastes and smells like it’s from a cooler vintage than 17. Wonderful texture, structure, depth and sweet tannins and fruit. Endless finish. This is on the verge of a 9.5. 9.4 to 9.5 now with air. What a talent this guy is. So elegant and complex. Just stunning. This is better than his 16. A stunner. Palate is supremely elegant and has wonderful red cherry fruit and gorgeous velvety tannins. So precise and balanced. What a value. Persistent and long. So so well made. Concentrated and structured but so easy to drink as that is 17. Structured and easy to drink. What fruit and depth. Sappy. Really long. This is only the 3rd vintage of this wine and just incredible work from Lorenzo here. He only made 115 cases of this wine which is a piddling amount.
Up next is the co-star of the show in 17. The 2nd vintage of a new wine and what a wine it is. The 2017 Olivero Mario Barolo "Vigna Unite" which is $39.99 a bottle on a 4-pack. What a brilliant debut. REM Murmur-like Debut. Just a brilliant, stunningly beautiful bottle of Barolo.
It is from two vineyards. One in La Morra and one in Serralunga. Both wines are made separately and after 28 months in oak and tonneau of 500-600 liters the blend is made. The 2017 Olivero Mario "Vigna Unite" is a stunningly, powerful, dense and ageworthy Barolo. This is more of a vertical wine thing the Bricco Ambrogio. More acidity, bigger tannins that are more epic and also more fruit and density. It's a big boy that needs age but is a fun drink young with a massive decant. Just so, so, so, so, so well made. Perfect balance.
Wonderful nose. Campfire, cherries, spice, graphite. A bit quiet but the detail and aromatic precision are stunning. Then it airs out. The nose, after air, is really, really dense. Dark berry fruits, tar, some chocolate and tons of Nebbiolo spice. Nose has huge, awesome spice and sick sick florals. Detailed fresh flowers with some dried petals amongst all the fresh petals. Cuban tobacco, dark cherry fruit. So many dark berries and cherries but the most perfect cherries in the bowl. Huge leather and smoke. This has some of the most vivid young aromasI've ever smelled in young Nebbiolo. Nose is now getting mintier. Like a wild mint. Really has opened up. Super floral, tree bark, incense and spice. Just so great.
Gorgeous palate. Just stunning red and intense black berry fruit and a sweet leather taste. Very Northern Rhone (Fass balanced, juicy Northern Rhone). The vivid dark cherry fruit and blackberries are just stunning. But they are like the fresh blackberries that you get off of the vines in the country with that blasting acidity that makes them so fresh. I've had wild blackberries before and there is no comparison. What a palate. So deep, so rich, so pure, so complex, big 17 tannins and wonderful balance and freshness. So long. This is exquisite. The blackberry fruit in this wine is so vivid and more like a real blackberry than the Driscoll's stiff you see everywhere. Amazing juiciness. So juicy and big, dense with chewy tannins that are super ultra refined. It's got energy for days and substantial structure but also unreal refinement. The grace and power is what makes a great Barolo great. The level of finesse here is just incredible. This has it spades. A real wow wine. Just a remarkable thing of beauty. Ripe and silky and super elite. This is beautiful. So elegant and structured. Amazing purity and depth. Gave this a 9.6 on Delectable.
2017 Olivero Mario Barolo Bricco Ambrogio - $51.99
($199.96 4-Pack)
2017 Olivero Mario Barolo VignaUnite - $41.99 ($159.96 4-Pack)
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