Barolo

The house's Barolo normale from a year Piedmont would rather forget. The label reads Barolo DOCG, produced and bottled in the zone of origin by Giacomo Borgogno & Figli, 750 ml, 13.5%, on the embossed Albeisa bottle the Alba producers revived in 1973, so a bottling from the DOCG era under Ida Borgogno and Franco Boschis and then their sons, who ran the house from Cesare Borgogno's death in 1968 until the 2008 sale to the Farinettis. Today's Borgogno Barolo is a blend of the house's Barolo and La Morra sites (Liste, Fossati, Cannubi, Cannubi San Lorenzo, San Pietro delle Viole, Annunziata, Case Nere), fermented spontaneously in concrete with a submerged-cap maceration and raised for more than two years in large Slavonian oak; how the 1984 was made the house does not document, and Wine Spectator notes that in the 1960s it still bought grapes from many small growers for its Barolo. Decanter's vintage guide is blunt about 1984: a cool start with some snow, a cold wet May, flowering delayed by two to three weeks, rain and humidity at key moments of the summer, and a cool autumn partly redeemed by a warm final ripening spell; those who waited in Barolo salvaged some good grapes, Barbaresco was poor overall, and the guide now calls it a vintage to avoid. Tastingbook's vintage page is no gentler, calling 1984 poor everywhere in Italy except Sicily, Sardinia and the northernmost corners of Piedmont.