About an hour before eating I opened a 375ml bottle of Paolo Scavino Barolo from the 2004 vintage. The wine went into a jug to breathe. There was almost no nose in the wee bit I poured into a glass and the flavor was tight and tannic.
The hour did wonders for the wine. The nose was flowers, tar, leather and cherries all in perfect balance. It was good to just sniff the wine. With some swirling the aromas left the glass and floated over the table. Tart, red cherries led off the taste, followed by mushrooms and hints of sweet tobacco. The tannins had calmed down to a point where they played a supporting role to the fruit tastes. Full bodied and mouth coating feel to the wine, and then there was a bit of acid and extra tannin at the end to clear the palate. The mushrooms in the pasta sauce had a love affair with the cherry flavors in the wine. Good stuff together.
This was a wine to savor, and we did. It took a couple of hours for the two of us to kill this bottle slowly. There is a full sized bottle of this still in the cellar, and I wondered how it would taste being 750ml. Would the wine be as ready as this half bottle? We decided to wait for another day on the larger bottle, but we certainly enjoyed the little brother.
$28 and 14.5% alcohol
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