The Domenico Clerico 2019 Barolo Ginestra Ciabot Mentin (with 5,500 bottles made with fruit from vines planted in 1978) is a bit closed initially. This is a trait I found across a vintage that gives us good reason to bet on long bottle-aging potential. There is dark fruit and spice with licorice and grilled herb. Rusty mineral nuances also emerge slowly from the bouquet. This wine needs a double decant if consumed on the young side, but you're better off waiting. I came back to my open sample 24 hours later, and the wine was singing beautifully.

This is a terrific set of new wines from Domenico Clerico owner Giuliana Viberti and winemaker Oscar Arrivabene. Oscar has made a few tweaks to winemaking, moving away from smaller oak barrels to embrace large casks instead. For the first time, both the 2019 Barolo Ginestra Pajana and the Barolo Ginestra Ciabot Mentin went into 5,000-liter wood vessels. These fundamental adjustments change the profile of the wines for the better, giving them more elegance and nuances, as these new releases demonstrate. In other news, the estate made a limited-release 2016 Langhe Nebbiolo Perdomenico (326 bottles, 100 magnums and five double magnums), with proceeds donated to charity.