Roagna Barolo La Rocca E La Pira Riserva 1996
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Robert
Parker
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 1996 Barolo Riserva La Rocca e La Pira opens with a lively dark ruby color and a compelling, balsamic nose with well-articulated notes of roses, violets and licorice. Two bottles were tasted, the first showing plenty of dark fruit on a classic, structured frame with great length and notable purity in a powerful expression of the vintage, while the second doesn’t quite have enough stuffing to fill its ample, structured frame and it comes across as compact and austere. Bottle age may help some, but this is unlikely to ever be an especially generous style of Barolo. Anticipated maturity: 2011-2021.
Alfredo and Luca, father and son, now take care of the property. In 1990, they were able to purchase two slices of renowned vineyard sites of Castiglione Falletto in Barolo, la Pira and le Rocche. These came with a 15th farm house they renovated and which became Casa Roagna, a bed and breakfast overlooking the vines
The Roagna like to describe their style as traditional and innovative. Luca was born in 1980, and is still pursuing a high degree in oenology. But he sees his academic studies as a way to understand intellectually all the practices he has observed on the terrain and in the cellar, as implemented by his grandfather Giovanni Roagna, father Alfredo and mother, Luigina.
In 2003, Luca initiated a new venture. He hopes to make a wine from each of the great cru sites in Barolo. He has begun with Vigna Rionda, in Serralunga d’Alba, where he has bought grapes from an old contadino who has worked the vineyard all his life in more or less organic fashion (no herbicides, minimal treatments.). We have yet to see which other cru from which Luca has managed to find some fruit, but he will continue.
All of the the vines in Barbaresco and Barolo are worked organically, no herbicide was ever used here, grass grows between the rows, and only copper and sulfur solutions are used for treatment.
Responsible for some of the most elegant and age-worthy wines in the world, Nebbiolo, named for the ubiquitous autumnal fog (called nebbia in Italian), is the star variety of northern Italy’s Piedmont region. Grown throughout the area, as well as in the neighboring Valle d’Aosta and Valtellina, it reaches its highest potential in the Piedmontese villages of Barolo, Barbaresco and Roero. Outside of Italy, growers are still very much in the experimentation stage but some success has been achieved in parts of California. Somm Secret—If you’re new to Nebbiolo, start with a charming, wallet-friendly, early-drinking Langhe Nebbiolo or Nebbiolo d'Alba.
The center of the production of the world’s most exclusive and age-worthy red wines made from Nebbiolo, the Barolo wine region includes five core townships: La Morra, Monforte d’Alba, Serralunga d’Alba, Castiglione Falletto and the Barolo village itself, as well as a few outlying villages. The landscape of Barolo, characterized by prominent and castle-topped hills, is full of history and romance centered on the Nebbiolo grape. Its wines, with the signature “tar and roses” aromas, have a deceptively light garnet color but full presence on the palate and plenty of tannins and acidity. In a well-made Barolo wine, one can expect to find complexity and good evolution with notes of, for example, strawberry, cherry, plum, leather, truffle, anise, fresh and dried herbs, tobacco and violets.
There are two predominant soil types here, which distinguish Barolo from the lesser surrounding areas. Compact and fertile Tortonian sandy marls define the vineyards farthest west and at higher elevations. Typically the Barolo wines coming from this side, from La Morra and Barolo, can be approachable relatively early on in their evolution and represent the “feminine” side of Barolo, often closer in style to Barbaresco with elegant perfume and fresh fruit.
On the eastern side of the Barolo wine region, Helvetian soils of compressed sandstone and chalks are less fertile, producing wines with intense body, power and structured tannins. This more “masculine” style comes from Monforte d’Alba and Serralunga d’Alba. The township of Castiglione Falletto covers a spine with both soil types.
The best Barolo wines need 10-15 years before they are ready to drink, and can further age for several decades.