Villadoria, Barolo

(Decanted for one and a half hour) Deep red colour with a brick red hue. Mature nose showing a warm leather, stables and chocolate with a nice sweet notes of lily flowers in a nice and pleasant way. Leather, barn and a very nice intensity on the mid before showing hip roses and some burnt notes on the nice and balanced finish. This was an excellent showing bottle feeling a couple of decades younger than the 56 years of age …

Riserva designation. Base neck fill, excellent cork (short). Not decanted. Hazy brick-mahogany color. Initial notes of tobacco, manure, porcini mushrooms and black truffles. Bloomed with air into a lovely bouquet of red cherries, roses, tar, leather, spice, cedar and stony soil. Similar on the palate, seamless, balanced, beautiful acidity and smooth tannins. Got better and better with air, last sip was the best.

Not outstanding, but an enjoyable wine with pasta in red sauce and sausage. Very prominent tar aroma, still highly tannic with almost no sediment. Based on the other comments, I thought it was safe to open this wine, but I now realize it was opened too early, and I could have easily waited another five years.

Decanted for 3 hours. Nice nose of cherries and earth. Medium bodied. Decent but nothing special.

I let this wine sit for about an hour and it had no sign of opening up. It was way too tart in a very bland way.

Dissappointing. Rather blan tasting, a milch-toast barolo.