1978 Barolo

Bartolo Mascarello’s 1978 Barolo (from 1.5 liter magnum) is a highly inconsistent wine because many of the surviving bottles and 1.5 liter magnums that are still in the market were not bottled at the estate, but were bottled from larger 1.9 liter magnums by the original purchasers of the wine, a practice that was not unusual at the time. Thankfully, this magnum was firing on all cylinders. With age, Bartolo Mascarello’s wines become quite delicate and Burgundian, but the 1978 still has plenty of power and structure. The vineyard sites were the same as today, Rocche dell’Annunziata, Cannubi, Rue and Cannubi/San Lorenzo, all vinified together in cement and bottled after four years.

The 1978 Cantina Mascarello Barolo was a wine I had looked forward to for some time, as I had purchased it directly at the estate some years back. Bottled in the traditional 1.9 liter magnum customary of that time, the wine showed a feminine, Burgundian core of fruit, with lovely inner sweetness and delicate notes of autumn leaves that lingered on the finish. Though fully mature, or close to it, the wine delivered immense pleasure.

1978 is of course one of the all-time great vintages in Piedmont. A spring hailstorm caused an irregular flowering and lowered yields, nature’s version of a green harvest. The summer was cool up until the final month of the season, which saw very hot temperatures. The grapes were thick-skinned but ripe, and yielded massively structured wines, the best of which are still youthful to this day. We were fortunate to drink two of the finest wines of that historic harvest. The 1978 Cantina (Bartolo) Mascarello Barolo came across as softer and more generous in its sweet, perfumed fruit, which makes sense given that Mascarello’s vineyards are in Barolo and La Morra, where the wines mature faster.