G. MASCARELLO BAROLO MONPRIVATO RISERVA 1999 Stock: 6771 The Monprivato vineyard, located in Castiglione Falletto, is another of the great monopole sites in Piedmont. The Mascarello family has owned the vineyard, which measures just over six hectares, for over 100 years. Within Monprivato there had always been a special parcel from which Mascarello hoped to produce a riserva. In the mid- 1980s Mascarello began a quest that would take him over four years to identify the best and most suitable clones of the Michet varietal to plant in the vineyard. The parcel was finally re-planted in 1988 and Mascarello named the new wine Ca’ d’Morissio (house of Maurizio) in honor of his grandfather. "Medium red. The 1999 Monprivato offers suggestions of flowers, sweet dark red fruit, licorice and minerals with notable weight on the palate, superb persistence and a final lingering note of sweetness on the fresh finish. It is an uncharacteristically rich and full bodied Monprivato at this stage and on this day it was absolutely amazing, dazzling tasters with its complexity, balance and sheer profoundness. As I have written in these pages before, Mascarello did not bottle his Riserva Ca’ d’Morissio in 1999 and there can be no doubt that the Monprivato benefits from the added richness of the fruit that might have otherwise gone into the Riserva. Monprivato remains one of the great values in Barolo and this 1999 is another wine that future generations will look back on as one of the vintage’s finest. I have been fortunate to taste older vintages of Monprivato on many occasions and this wine’s aging potential is decades. The 1999 is a must-have wine. 95+ points Antonio Galloni /drink after 2011, 02/06, 03/06 n/a