Barolo Romirasco, Poderi Aldo Conterno 2020

Dense garnet in the glass, this sample shines for its depth and intensity, with rhubarb, bitter oranges, Mediterranean herbs, Parma violets and cinnamon. The attack is firm, dense and velvety, with a full body, great fruit concentration, graphite minerality and refreshing lifted acidity. It doesn’t come across as over-extracted despite the firm structure intended for the long haul.

Following Colonnello and Cicala, I tried to summon up an accurate image of the shape and style of this wine, but Romirasco cannot be second-guessed. There is a carnality and pagan nature to this wine that brings in wildness and an untamed feel to proceedings. With lashings of spice, thrilling meatiness, dried herbs, and tobacco tones, this is an evocative, nostalgic wine with prodigious depth and even some remarkable flamboyance on the outer limits of the perfume. I cannot take my eyes off this wine. It appears to have the weight of history and experience on its shoulders, and the tomes of fruit and anti fruit have more apparent harmony than I find in Cicala right now, and yet it is a more backward wine. This is another Cru with an ever-evolving character in the glass, and during the half-hour that I tasted it, it performed twists and turns that were entirely unpredictable and completely gripping.