Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Wine Tasting back to the 2003 Vintage

“High and fine literature is wine, and mine is only water; but everybody likes water.” 
― Mark Twain

That’s all I drink is wine and water with a little Tequila and Scotch mixed in for good measure.  It’s all coming out in my new book the “Two Bottle Per Day Wine Diet”.  I’m in training and must stay in good drinking shape for all these “Once in a Life time” wine tastings coming up in October and November.

This rare offering of Rinaldi’s top cuvée which, through 1994, was the Brunate Riserva (100% Brunate) of the best vintages in the last 30 years in the Piedmont.  From 1993 on, this wine has been called Brunate-Le Coste and is made from approximately 60% Brunate and 40% Le Coste.  Finding these wines is not very easy as most of the estate’s production is quietly sold to longstanding private customers in Italy, Switzerland and Germany. 

As explained in the info below in the review by Antonio Galloni this Brunate-Le Coste wine will no longer exist due to a recent change in Piedmont wine law that states there can’t be less than 85% single vineyard to have that vineyard cru name on the bottle and you can no longer list more than one single vineyard cru name on the label.  The 2009 vintage was the last of the Brunate Le Coste making these older vintage wines even more valuable today as they will not be made like this in the future.

Updated Notes:  Law Changes and Rinaldi

The major thing I wanted you to know is that the wine we've known as BRUNATE-LE COSTE was made from 60% of Brunate and 40% of Le Coste fruit. That wine is now simply labeled as BRUNATE and is now an 85% Brunate, 15% Le Coste split. A BRUNATE labeled Barolo can only add a maximum of 15% non-Brunate fruit, per the new law. You cannot have two vineyard names on a label any longer in Barolo. If you produce your wine that way, you must create a "fantasy name" (i.e. "Tre Tine").. The production is now much less on this bottling from Rinaldi, I do not have exact numbers but I know that we are now getting a significantly lower percentage of cases imported to the US.

The wine we've known as CANNUBI-SAN LORENZO / RAVERA has historically been a blend of those two vineyards. Now, beginning with the 2010 vintage  that bottling is now called "TRE TINE" which means "three vats" and is a blend of those two areas (50% Ravera, 30% Cannubi/San Lorenzo  PLUS 20% of fruit from Le Coste)

Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Wine Tasting
Saturday, October 12th
7:30pm

2003 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Brunate Le Coste DOCG
2005 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Brunate Le Coste DOCG
2007 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Brunate-Le Coste DOCG
2015 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Tre Tine DOCG
2017 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Brunate DOCG
2017 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Tre Tine DOCG
2018 GIUSEPPE Rinaldi Barolo Brunate DOCG
2019 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo 'Tre Tine' DOCG
2019 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Brunate DOCG
2019 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Bussia DOCG

Menu
Selection of Cheese and Charcuterie
Beef tartar Served with Bone Marrow
Duck and Foie Gras Sausage Pasta with Goat Cheese and Sundried Tomatoes
Prosciutto Wrapped Kurobuta Pork Loin Served over Barolo wild Mushroom Sauce
Tiramisu

The fee for this tasting is $495 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.  Please let us know when you make your reservations if you have any food allergies or aversions and chefs Toni and Dani will be happy to accomodate you.

Wine Spectator Posted: September 4, 2018
By: Bruce Sanderson

Giuseppe "Beppe" Rinaldi, proprietor of the Giuseppe Rinaldi estate in the Italian wine appellation of Barolo, died September 2nd after recently being diagnosed with bladder cancer.

He was 69.

"Beppe Rinaldi was a special person, low-keyed, very knowledgeable about the history of the Barolo area and a staunch traditionalist, just like his father and grandfather," said Dominic Nocerino of Vinifera Imports, Rinaldi's New York importer, who began working with the estate in 1980.

Rinaldi, a veterinarian by profession, took the reins of his family's winery three decades ago after the death of his father, Battista. The Rinaldi family had first started selling grapes in the late 1800s; Rinaldi's grandfather, also Giuseppe, began bottling and selling wines in the 1920s.

Despite the changes occurring in the Barolo region in the 1980s and '90s, Rinaldi continued to make wines much like his father and grandfather had, blending crus to find a balance. He produced two cuvées, each a blend of vineyards, fermented in wooden vats and aged in large, neutral-oak barrels: Brunate-Le Coste and Cannubi San Lorenzo–Ravera.

When labeling laws changed with the release of the 2010 vintage, Rinaldi blended three of the vineyards, calling the wine Tre Tine, or "Three Casks," and bottled the Brunate separately. Known for their youthful austerity and ageability, Rinaldi's Barolos were pure and complex. Beppe's other nickname was “Citrico,” or “the acidic one,” for his directness and acerbic wit.

Rinaldi was joined in the Winery by his eldest daughter, Marta, an enologist, in 2008, and younger daughter, Carlotta, an agronomist, in 2012.

“The winery is in good hands with his children," Nocerino told Wine Spectator. "Beppe will be greatly missed, but his legacy will live on in the wine world."

In addition to his daughters, Rinaldi is survived by his wife, Annalisa.