Giuseppe Rinaldi

I visited the Gaja estate in Barbaresco just before harvest in 2016 and everything was looking set for another high quality harvest across Barolo and Barbaresco. So now it seems the consensus throughout the Piedmont region is that 2016 stands as a very promising and potentially exceptional high quality vintage.

Most producers in the region felt happy with the final results of the harvest season, reporting a crop both high in quality and quantity, with grapes possessing sugar concentration to rival the richness of 2015 but with greater structure and livelier acidity.

Giuseppe Rinaldi Barbera d’Alba 2016, 14 Abv.

This beautiful 2016 Barbera d’Alba from Giuseppe Rinaldi echoes the above sentiments and is evidence of another very good vintage. The nose is slightly exotic but very alluring. Plenty of black cherry coulis, wood smoke, hints of tar, sweet tobacco, black plum spice, oyster shell and salty cassis. Obviously very youthful still, however there is a silent confidence to this wine. The palate reveals ripe fruit and ample textured roundness but with perhaps a little more mineral grip and piquant tannins than the fleshier, riper 2015 expression. With such opulent bright black and red berry fruits bolstered by a mouth watering refreshing acidity, this wine impresses from start to finish. Wonderful depth and harmonious balance, you get to see the real ability of this great classical Piedmont estate to deliver iconic reds vintage after vintage. Barbera can really be a real thing of beauty when handled with serious intent. Drink now to 2028+.

(Wine Safari Score: 93+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)

Sometimes even just mentioning a wine repeatedly is enough to add to the collector feeding frenzy let alone actually tasting and rating a wine. But any Italian or Piedmont follower will already be fully aware of the explosion in demand for the cult wines of Giuseppe Rinaldi over the past 2 to 3 years. Forget trying to buy their Tre Tine Barolo blend let alone his Brunate Cru! Even sourcing the “lesser” Dolcetto, Freisa and Barbera d’Alba have become a major challenge in itself.

But it is only when you taste the wines that you realise why this traditionally leaning producer has acquired the cult following that they have. The wines are beautifully classical, pure, unadulterated, subtly mineral, full of energy and tension and of course, utterly delicious.

The 2015 growing season in Piedmont included the region’s hottest July since 1880. That might have endangered grape quality but plentiful reserves of water after a wet winter kept vines from shutting down, and growers were better adapted to managing leaf canopies this time compared to the torrid 2003 vintage, thus being able to keep the vines healthy and promote more even grape ripening.

July and August were also windy, keeping air circulating through the leaves and avoiding excessive heat under the canopies. Vineyards higher on the slopes may have enjoyed a slight advantage over warmer, less breezy downhill spots, enjoying longer ripening periods. In addition, higher diurnal temperature swings in September provided the right conditions for ripening both sugars and tannins in not only Nebbiolo but also Barbera.

Giuseppe Rinaldi Barbera d’Alba 2015, Piedmont, 14 Abv.

From a super opulent ripe vintage in Piedmont comes yet another profound expression of Barbera from Giuseppe Rinaldi. The aromatics are so rich and exotic with sweet baking spices, black berry fruits tinged with brûléed oak spice notes and buttered brown toast. This wine is very expressive but also beautifully complex with fine palate weight and superb intense fruit concentration. Multi layered and textural, the brûléed black berry fruits reach all corners of the mouth with creamy blueberry and black cherry depth and such delicious fleshy, harmonious elegance and power. Certainly a facet of this superb vintage, this wine has a definite feel of more modernity and purity of fruit than previously vintages. Really lush, attractive, and so mouth watering and drinkable. You wouldn’t expect anything less from this iconic cult producer. Drink now to 2028+

(Wine Safari Score: 94+/100 Greg Sherwood MW)