"At its best, Barolo is a truly special wine, with complex aromatics, layers of flavor, structure to burn, and most importantly of all, the ability to captivate the taster for hours on end as the wine constantly changes in the glass. When I think of the wines that embody those qualities, Beppe Rinaldi's Barolos are at or near the top of the list." - Antonio Galloni, Vinous

We’ve been waxing on about our Giuseppe Rinaldi obsession for several years now, so these wines will need little introduction to those of your who’ve been with us for a while. We’ve only fallen harder for these wines over that time, though they’re not as easy to come by as when we first started going deep on them. This is the very top of Barolo for us. The bottles are joyous, heady, transparent expressions of the appellation that could only come from these magical dusty cellars.

As of the 2010 vintage, it's no longer permitted to list two separate vineyards on bottles of Barolo. Instead of Brunate-Le Coste and Cannubi-Ravera, Rinaldi now makes one of Brunate (as Beppe's predecessors once did) and one called "Tre Tine" that is a blend of Ravera (50%), Cannubi (30%) and Le Coste (20%). We've confirmed with Marta Rinaldi, Giuseppe’s daughter, that the Brunate contains about 15% from Le Coste, which is allowed.

The 2011 vintage in Piedmont produced charming, open-knit wines that should be fine drinking in the near and medium term, perfect bottles to crack while you’re waiting on ‘08’s and ‘10’s to come around. Though the vintage was fairly ripe, it was a far cry from ’03. Galloni puts it nicely: “Relative to other ripe years, the 2011s are racy, but not as opulent as the 2007s and more consistent than the 2009s.”

These are certainly not inexpensive wines by any stretch of the imagination, but when you consider their qualitative equals from other top regions, you have to scratch your head. We mentioned this when the 2010 vintage was released, but it bears repeating: buying Rinaldi's right now is like getting Margaux or Chambertin at 1980's prices. You'll want to stock up while this is still the case.