Expensive and worth it: 2001 Azelia Bricco Fiasco library release.
It wasn’t an ordinary day. A Piedmontese feast was being prepared. Not by me. Antipasti, vitello tonnato, tajarin, and steak. Homemade focaccia, and panna cotta. My role was to provide suitable wine. If you bring “everyday” wine to an occasion like this, you really are letting down the side. Friends are counting on you.
An appropriate choice for a dinner painstakingly prepared across multiple days is the best wine you can dig up. In the circumstances, late in a grindingly year-long pandemic, when companionship and food that elevates above “chili and fritos on the couch” has become rare, a sensible selection is 20-year-old Barolo. Or, the best regional wine to match the featured cuisine.
I’ve had 2001 Azelia Barolo Bricco Fiasco. More than once even, across quite a span of years. And it’s good. On the day, it was singing, alive, exceptional. Maybe at its zenith, though with good Barolo it can be hard to tell. Another producer’s 1958 was also breathtakingly good. It was opened as a curiosity, though I should know by now never to count Barolo out. It endures.
I expect to be disappointed by old wine. Maybe we all should. Think about the temporal and literal distances traveled before that wet, crumbling cork is finally removed. Other fancy wines shared at what became a 10+ hour lunch/dinner shone less brightly. It’s not a knock on those estates (so I won’t mention them.) Wine goes in and out of phase, and over time an individual bottle becomes its own little terrarium, time capsule, it gets lines and grooves and blemishes. The beauty of keeping wine is stored in that individuality. You meet each old wine as a distinct entity.
We will continue to buy library release reserve wines from our top estates. Even modestly priced well-made wine can become delightful with time. When the majority of that passage of time occurs in the cellar of the farm where the wine was grown, the chances of wine rising above the ordinary and the “interesting” to become an indelible memory increases dramatically.
Please consider buying a bottle of one of the library release wines listed below to share with your favorite person or persons. Or the best cook in your universe. The aromas of carefully prepared food help to coax old wine out of slumberland. And don’t feel strange about buying just one bottle. Who’s rich enough to stockpile gems like these? I like the idea of these bottles traveling widely, dispersed to all manner of kitchens, any place inhabited by people who glean happiness from meals. Special wine can’t be solely the possession of fetishists and one percenters.
At the end of the evening, when I shouldn’t have been close to hungry, I found myself stealing additional bites of perfectly tender steak. I think the Barolo kept my insides in harmony. We feasted, and the following day I felt great. Better than the previous morning.
I hope we do it again one day, with Spanish fare, and dusty bottles of Tempranillo. From another dude’s cellar.
Let’s live lives, pay bills, and take breaks for top-notch Barolo. Cheers!
What’s available now:
2001 Azelia Barolo Bricco Fiasco Suggested Retail $179.99 24 bottles available and yes this is the wine we drank with the feast.
2006 Azelia Barolo Margheria Suggested Retail $155.99 45 bottles available. I brought this wine to dinner and in a fit of moderation we didn’t open it. I’ve had it very recently though. It’s youthful, at an early zenith.
Azelia 2007 Barolo Riserva Bricco Voghera 1.5-liter 3 bottles available. Arguably their best wine, and can be yours for the low, low price of $375.99 Suggested Retail. Maybe shave off a corner of that stimulus check and buy this.
Also, we have a couple mags of 1999 Azelia Barolo San Rocco. They cost $449.99 Suggested Retail each. Because they are big bottles of 22-year-old Barolo! Can you believe that wine lovers born in 1999 are of legal drinking age now? What a time to be alive.
Support your local independent retailer or restaurant. Click HERE for a list of our partners.
