The wine of the month

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Sandrone, Vite Talin, Barolo, 2017

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5,0 NJP of 5,0 NJP

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June 2024: Sandrone, Vite Talin, Barolo, 2017 (299 EUR/323 USD; selling price to restaurants in Sweden i.e. price exclusive VAT) red dry wine, Piedmonte, Italy, 5,0 NJP of 5,0 NJP (100 points of 100 points)

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Here we have an example of how a perfect Barolo wine should be. It is extremely difficult to find a Barolo-wine as this. NJ Wines has tasted thousands of Barolo-wines in all possible price ranges and at least 99% of those had a very prominent tannin structure that was not met by good fruitiness and concentration. Without checking in NJ Wines' extensive wine database, NJ Wines believes that the Sandrone Vite Talin Barolo 2017 is the first Barolo-wine that got 5,0 NJP of 5,0 NJP (100 points of 100 points) by NJ Wines. As far as NJ Wines can remember, only Poderi Aldo Conterno Colonnello 2012 was close to get 5,0 NJP in 2017, but it got 4,5 NJP of 5,0 NJP. All other tasted and rated Barolo-wines got significantly lower points over the last 40 years. Everything that is written above only confirms what a brilliant Barolo-wine Sandrone Vite Talin Barolo 2017 is. The wine is a school example of how one absolutely fabulous Barolo-wine should be. It is complex, austere and nuanced, and has an absolutely fabulous balance between tartaric acidity, sweetness, fruitiness and tannins. Thanks to the fabulous balance, the wine's tannins feel silky smooth. The aroma is complex and sophisticated. In it, Cuban tobacco of the highest quality, sweet spices, dried dark cherries, dried dates, blackberries, violets, roses and graphite clearly emerge. The flavour is nuanced, sophisticated and perfectly austere. In it, ripe dark cherries, tobacco, sweet spices, blackberries, thyme, mint, violets and graphite clearly emerge. The wine's silky tannins and a very long aftertaste of sweet spices, ripe dark cherries, tobacco and herbs remain forever in the mouth. Everything mentioned above contributes to that Sandrone Vite Talin Barolo 2017 is a very ageable wine that can be aged for at least 20 years i.e. until at least 2044. But already now this absolutely fabulous wine is ready to be enjoyed with great pleasure.

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These perfect Barolo-wine Sandrone Vite Talin Barolo 2017 will go really well with grilled duck breast with port wine and cherry sauce and potato stoemp (roughly mashed potatoes with vegetables and cream) or with butter-fried goose liver or duck liver on butter-fried bread (in both cases with very little butter; the butter must be of the absolute highest quality) with apple jelly or with blackberry jelly or with Swedish plommonjärpar (minced meat steak with prune) with parsley cream sauce, diced potatoes and crispy split peas and wax beans or with stuffed pasta with mushrooms and ricotta with browned butter sauce and thyme or with slow-roasted porchetta with grilled vegetables and buttery garlic bread or with veal kidneys in cognac sauce with raw fried potatoes or with authentic Wiener schnitzel with potato salad (with very little vinegar). The wine should be served at 18 to 19°C in Bordeaux glasses, if possible, from Orrefors, Kosta Boda, Spiegelau or Riedel. Another option is to serve it at 16°C (when room temperature or outdoor temperature is above 23°C) and then enjoy it as it starts to grow in the glass.

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Sandrone Vite Talin Barolo consists of 100% Nebbiolo. The grapes for the wine come from vineyards from three Barolo municipalities: Le Coste, Drucà and Rivassi. The vines are over 35 years old. The soil consists of calcareous blue (marl) and calcareous grey clay (marl) that contains sand layers with fossil shells in some areas. The grapes are picked and sorted very carefully by hand in both the vineyard and the winery. Then they are destemmed and gently pressed. The grape mass, which consists of crushed grapes (grape skins and grape fleshes) and grape juice, is macerated and fermented in 5,000 litres open oak barrels for 20 to 35 days. The grape skin mass is pressed down (pigeage) in the grape must (grape fleshes and grape juice) with special rods several times a day. What is unique about the wine is that it is both macerated and fermented at unusually high temperatures. Then the grape mass is gently pressed, and the wine is moved to stainless steel tanks where it stays for 7 days to be separated, without filtration, from larger particles. After that, the wine is moved to roughly 50% new French 500 litres oak barrels where it undergoes malolactic fermentation and a 24 months long aging. The wine is then moved to large, several thousand litres, old French oak barrels and aged for another 12 months. Last but not least, the wine is bottled and aged for another 36 months before it released on the market. The wine is not filtered.

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These fantastic, rare and unique Sandrone Vite Talin Barolo-wines are imported to Sweden by Provinum.