TN : 2004 Travaglini Giancarlo Riserva Gattinara

[Nicklasss]

Last Monday, i opened a bottle of the 2004 Travaglini Giancarlo Riserva Gattinara. The AOC Gattinara is not well known, but it is a wine made from nebbiolo, a little bit north of Barolo/Barbaresco. I bought a bottle, as it has a lower price than the two stars of Piedmont, and that AOC was supposely more popular than the 2 stars in the past.

Color was medium red, not too dense. Nose was closed at first, opened slowly on old red cherries, smoke and dried leaves. Light intensity on the nose, so difficult to analyze. In mouth, the wine stay on the light to medium side, with pronounced flavors of earth, mushrooms, old red cherries, and humus. Kind of really ''earthy''. Tannins are very light, and the lenght is decent on smoke and cranberries. At the end, i thought it was missing fruit and intensity generally. An ok drink but for the price, you better put the extra dollars for the 2 stars... or for a good Sangiovese. TN : 82.

Nic

[alchemeus]

Last Monday, i opened a bottle of the 2004 Travaglini Giancarlo Riserva Gattinara. The AOC Gattinara is not well known, but it is a wine made from nebbiolo, a little bit north of Barolo/Barbaresco. I bought a bottle, as it has a lower price than the two stars of Piedmont, and that AOC was supposely more popular than the 2 stars in the past.

Color was medium red, not too dense. Nose was closed at first, opened slowly on old red cherries, smoke and dried leaves. Light intensity on the nose, so difficult to analyze. In mouth, the wine stay on the light to medium side, with pronounced flavors of earth, mushrooms, old red cherries, and humus. Kind of really ''earthy''. Tannins are very light, and the lenght is decent on smoke and cranberries. At the end, i thought it was missing fruit and intensity generally. An ok drink but for the price, you better put the extra dollars for the 2 stars... or for a good Sangiovese. TN : 82.

Nic

This wine used to be prevalent here, no longer imported by the county, ergo, no longer available. I always loved this Nebbiolo. Could be had for like $18. Sad it's not as good as previous vintages.

[jal]

Is that the one with the weird looking bottle?

[Michael Malinoski]

I'm not sure if all of their cuvees are in the weird sort of square-sided bottle, but I do know the normale is bottled that way. By the way, the 1997 tasted just a few months ago was aromatically beautiful, but seemingly losing fruit at this stage on the palate. The riserva is supposed to be very long-lived and needing a long time to shed the tannins. Your experience with the 2004 doesn't really seem to synch up with that, though.