Hello -
I've had a bottle of Prodittori Barbaresco 1989 Montestefano (Labeled No.
9063, if that's significant) in my cellar for nearly 10 years, and this afternoon, while cooking some Chicken Caccitore, I fancied I could hear it calling to me from the basement. So I went downstairs, and fetched the bottle, rinsed the dust off, and popped the cork.After a moment's rest I poured a taste - rather thin and tannic, I thought, and I wondered if I had maybe waited too long. After a moment more though, as the bottle warmed from my rather cool cellar and breathed a bit, flavors of leather, tobacco, even a touch of asphalt and an almost smoky flavor developed. Fullness of flavor developed as the wine warmed and breathed to balance the rather substantial and austere tannins, and the tannins followed the palate down into a long dry finish. And at the very end of the finish, on the exhale, I could smell the slightest waft of the countryside in the hills of the Alta Langhe, where Barbaresco is made.
If someone else out there has another bottle of this in their cellar, I think you could safely wait another few years, since the tannins were nowhere close to being played out. While I didn't decant this wine, I feel it would have benefitted from being decanted, since the wine perceptibly improved as it sat in the glass in contact with the air. Also, this wine needs to be served at the proper temperature - if it's too cold it really closes up.
Katherine