Vintage wines
Year | Rating | Drinkability | Style |
---|---|---|---|
2010 | keep | Copious yields, so green-harvesting essential. Excellent quality and staying power. | |
2009 | |
keep | A very hot summer and an early harvest gave rich, opulent and hedonistic wines |
2008 | keep | Another 2008 vintage saved by an Indian summer. Expect intense flavours but a more elegant structure than last year. Low yielding harvest. |
|
2007 | keep | Lengthy ripening season produced well-structured, aromatic wines with plentiful butripe, velvety tannins. |
|
2006 | keep | For growers who worked judiciously in the vineyards, the vintage is expected to show a classic, good structure, nice restraint on the fruit but a certain element of power as well. |
|
2005 | keep | Climate conditions have been erratic with many producers saying it’s been a tough and difficult vintage. | |
2004 | keep | Well balanced wines with ripe fruit. | |
2003 | keep | Deep, bold reds with high levels of alcohol and in the best cases balanced with ripe fruit. | |
2002 | drink now | An average year, the best of which will be a relatively elegant style of Barolo. | |
2001 | keep | Lovely, ripe with good concentration and with excellent aging potential—chewy, concentrated, and phenolic. |
|
2000 | keep | Quality is good to very good in all the major Barolo areas. | |
1999 | keep | A decent vintage with a good late ripening season, quality depends on the individual grower. | |
1998 | keep | The third great vintage in a row. | |
1997 | drink now | An outstanding vintage which produced superbly ripe wines for mid-term ageing. | |
1996 | drink now | A troublesome vintage, though the top growers still managed to produce some excellent wines. | |
1995 | drink now | An over-hyped vintage at the time, the wines now seem lacking in fruit. | |
1994 | drink now | Prolonged rain caused serious problems although a few producers still made good wines. | |
1993 | drink now | A variable vintage of irregular quality. Some good Barolo. | |
1992 | drink now | Cold and wet weather at harvest time produced thin, light wines. | |
1991 | drink now | A better vintage than first thought, but not up to the standard of the previous three. | |
1990 | keep | A superb vintage all round with Barolo and set for a long life. | |
1989 | drink now | An excellent vintage, free of the rains which plagued the rest of Italy. | |
1988 | drink now | October rains were a problem but the wines from this vintage finally turned out well. | |
1987 | drink now | Uneven quality overall. | |
1986 | drink now | Serious hail problems in many Barolo communes. Some good wines were still made. | |
1985 | drink now | A superb vintage with rich, perfumed wines destined for long ageing. | |
1984 | drink now | A sub-standard Piedmont vintage. | |
1983 | drink now | A weak vintage producing lightweight, early-maturing wines. | |
1982 | drink now | A tremendous vintage for big, rich and fruity Barolo. | |
1981 | drink now | An unexceptional year of only average quality. | |
1980 | drink now | A sound, rather than exciting, vintage. | |
1979 | drink now | A good year of above average quality. | |
1978 | drink now | An excellent vintage which produced well-structured, long-lived wines. | |
1977 | drink now | Wines were adequate at best. | |
1976 | drink now | An unremarkable vintage producing few wines suitable for long-term ageing. | |
1975 | drink now | A vintage now best forgotten. | |
1974 | drink now | A good vintage after two disappointing years. | |
1973 | drink now | An indifferent year with few wines of note. | |
1972 | drink now | A uniformly dreadful vintage. | |
1971 | drink now | The second great year in a row, with very fine Barolo. |