Maria Teresa Mascarello’s 2017 Barolo is a typical wine for the year. Classically mid-weight in structure, the 2017 is all finesse and class, but it is also decidedly laid back. In fact, alcohol is 0.5% lower in 2017 than 2016. Mascarello gave her wine three weeks on the skins, with no extended fermentation.
“It was a very challenging year,” Mascarello relayed. “There was some heat stress in the vines. We had a bit of rain in early September, just as we brought in the last Dolcetto. It was the first rain we had seen in 3-4 months. The soils literally looked like powder as the rain fell. Temperatures started to drop right after that. Harvest was almost a month earlier than 2016 and quite condensed. We picked everything in about 23 days as opposed to the more typical 4-5 weeks.”
