1997 Pio Cesare Barolo Ornato

The spectacular 1997 Barolo Ornato (1,000 cases, produced only in the finest vintages), from a Serralunga vineyard planted next to Bruno Giacosa's famous parcel of Falletto di Serralunga, offers a terrific fragrance of raspberries, cherries, smoke, leather, and toasty oak. There are huge quantities of glycerin, a stupendous finish, and gorgeous purity as well as overall symmetry. This 1997 will require 2-4 years of cellaring, but will keep for 2-3 decades. Wine Advocate.June, 2001

Good full red-ruby. Slightly rustic, liqueur-like aromas of roasted redcurrant, raspberry, smoke, leather and tobacco. Silky-sweet, with impressive sappy richness. This boasts terrific retention of primary fruit and verve for a wine from this vintage. Finishes firmly tannic, bright and long, with a youthfully aggressive quality that promises a slow evolution in bottle. Cesare harvested its Serralunga fruit very late in '97; "before that it just wasn't ripe," he noted.