2006 Barolo Le Coste Mosconi

Parusso's 2006 Barolo Le Coste-Mosconi is simply superb. The late harvest in 2006 yielded a wine blessed with gorgeous, articulate aromatics, beautifully ripe fruit and finessed tannins, all of which add tons of class to what is essentially a full-throttle, fruit-driven Barolo. A vein of minerality runs through the wine from start to finish, adding a degree of freshness that is unusual for such a big wine. The textural richness and balance here are drop-dead gorgeous.

Parusso’s 2006 Barolo Le Coste-Mosconi is simply superb. The late harvest in 2006 yielded a wine blessed with gorgeous, articulate aromatics, beautifully ripe fruit and finessed tannins, all of which add tons of class to what is essentially a full-throttle, fruit-driven Barolo. A vein of minerality runs through the wine from start to finish, adding a degree of freshness that is unusual for such a big Barolo. The textural richness and balance here are drop-dead gorgeous. Anticipated maturity: 2016-2031. I was deeply impressed with the wines I tasted from Marco Parusso this year. Parusso gambled and left the fruit hanging until late October, when he brought in the last of the Nebbiolo crop. The 2006 Barolos were vinified first in steel, then racked into French oak, where the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations were completed. The wines spent 24 months on their lees prior to being bottled. Marco Parusso is one of Piedmont’s most relentless explorers, and every new vintage seems to bring with it a twist. Parusso is among the few producers increasing the amount of new French oak in his Barolos and has begun experimenting with the partial use of stems in vinification, an approach no one else to my knowledge in using in Piedmont. Importer: Montecastelli Selections, New York, NY; tel. (212) 414-4898