2016 Barolo Brunate

Luca Currado farms in the Brunate cru on the La Morra side of the vineyard (as opposed to the Barolo side), and this wine includes fruit from new parcels. The differences are subtle to be sure, but I always associate La Morra with an extreme silkiness and softness. I find those qualities apply to this wine. The Vietti 2016 Barolo Brunate shows blue flowers, forest fruit, wild cherry and truffle-infused earth. It reveals a lean but open-knit quality that you sense in the mouth. That softness, or textural silkiness, continues for many long minutes with hints of mint, licorice and camphor ash doled out carefully along the way. The tannins are polished and long. This is an extremely elegant Brunate.

The 2016 Barolo Brunate is a powerful, vertical wine endowed with tremendous explosive energy and intensity. Crushed flowers, mint, spice and dried flowers open up in the glass, but it is the wine's energy that really elevates it into the stratosphere. In the glass, the 2016 is dark, somber and full of the sepia-toned nuances that are such signatures of this great Barolo vineyard. This is the first vintage that includes Vietti's newest parcel in Brunate. Perhaps more importantly, though, the 2016 is the first vintage in which French oak is minimal. This is a stunning vintage for the Brunate.