Product information

Giuseppe Cortese Barbaresco Rabajà Riserva MAGNUM 2013

Nebbiolo from Piedmont, Italy, Barbaresco

$550

$535ea in any 3+
$520ea in any 6+
Closure: Cork
🍇RABAJÀ RABAJÀ RABAJÀ 🇮🇹

Description

All savoury and stocky, lots of black tea and supple woody herbs. Impressive tannins even long plush mouthfeel. A layer of slatey tannins of supreme quality sit in harmony with the equally long and even core of fruit.

There’s a lot going on, still opening in the glass and building nicely. The perfume and fruit on show now! Impressive P.1.S.S. Flavour linger for ages. Seriously good vino. A little hint of truffle building into the mix. Pops of fennel and liquorice fresh then dark. Richness with delicacy. Magnum now in the cellar. Delicious!

“Intense florals – violet and dried rose, dark raspberry, cherry, licorice, spice. Medium-bodied, but deep and sinewy, ripe cherry fruit, intense minerally tightly packed black tea tannin, and despite its darkness and backwards nature, has an alluring mouth-perfume and repressed juiciness throughout; a sure signpost to the direction it will take in the future. And it’s long. A classic.” GW 96 Points

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Check out all of the wines by Giuseppe Cortese

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

You could call Giuseppe Cortese a one trick pony.

The majority of his Nebbiolo comes from just 1 vineyard

Boy, it’s one hell of a pony – Rabajà.

The winery’s signature wine; produced exclusively in the most classic vintages, it reaches the highest expression of the Nebbiolo variety, in terms of complexity and longevity, in the Rabajà vineyard.

This wine is a selection from a small part of Rabajà and is only made in the best, classic years. It has considerable structure, elegance and great capacity for evolution.

Grape variety: 100% nebbiolo

Surface area: in Barbaresco ,1 hectare in the “Rabajà” zone, with south, south-westerly exposure

Altitude: 235 / 315 meters a.s.l.

Soil: Limestone and clay soil rich in minerals and stratified with layers of “tufo”

Age of vineyard: around 70 years. Density of planting system: guyot-4,000 vines per hectare

Vinification: around 35 days of fermentation in stainless steel and old cement tanks

Ageing:40 months in Slavonian oak barrels ranging in size of 17 to 25 hectolitres and in age of 30/32 years. Minimum 3 years of maturing in the bottle before being released for sale.

 

“It’s impossible not to admire these genuine, sincere wines and their equally unpretentious prices”. Antonio Galloni

About Guiseppe Cortese

Giuseppe went solo in 1971, making his first wine under his own name.

About the 2013 Barbaresco Vintage

Aldo Vacca shared his throughts on the 2013 Vintage. They should apply equally to Cortese’s Rabajà.

The 2013 growing season was cool, delayed in both budbreak and flowering, pushing the harvest into October, compared with more recent harvests in this millennium that have occurred in September. This played into the late-ripening Nebbiolo’s hand nicely, allowing the grapes to ripen slowly in the warm days and cool nights of September and early October. Picking began the Oct. 10 and finished Oct. 24.

“The good thing about this vintage is we were able to pick late, so the tannins were able to ripen fully,” explains Vacca.

The resulting wines are classically proportioned, the result of the long, slow ripening. They are aromatic, full of fruit and firmly structured, yet with the balance and tension that will allow them to age beautifully. Give them at least five years in the cellar, though the denser wines will need a few more years before really hitting their stride.

“You can feel from this vintage that these wines are going to explode at some point after five, six or seven years,” says Vacca. “The ’11s are evolving nicely, but these have the tension to really surprise.”

 

 

Where in the World is Giuseppe Cortese?

Cortese’s best vineyard is undoubtedly his Rabajà

Contrary to how it may appear when seen from a distance, the Rabajà hill is anything but homogeneous and can be broadly divided into at least two areas. The first bordering on Asili coincides with the picturesque amphitheatre overlooking the Martinenga cru, and mostly enjoys a south-westerly aspect. The second, on the other hand, is more linear and faces due south, though within it there are some evident variations due to marked undulations around the hillside. In both cases, the style of the wine is, however, richer and bolder than the Asili and Martinenga (although a more uncompromising, mineral character tends to emerge in the second area).

Cortese’s Rabajà is mainly facing south-west in the hollow above Martinenga, south for the remainder

Click to enlarge 🔎
95+ Points

The 2013 Barbaresco Rabajà Riserva is a dense, brooding wine endowed with serious depth and intensity, Graphite, smoke, cured meats, spice, leather and licorice give the Riserva its decidedly sombre, virile personality. Readers should be prepared to cellar the 2013 for at least a few years. Today, the 2013 is in an awkward stage where it is mot young, but it is also not mature, and in periods like this, patience is key, as there is not much pleasure to be had. The 2013 won't be released until at least Spring 2020, so there is plenty of time. Nov. 2019

The 2013 Barbaresco Riserva Rabajà is gorgeous. Deeply spiced and exquisitely layered, the 2013 possesses remarkable harmony from start to finish. Even though it has just been bottled, the 2013 exhibits tons of class and pedigree. The tannins are present, but they are impeccably balanced within the wine's frame. Today, the 2013 is a bit nervous and compact, a combination of the recent bottling and vintage, but it is tremendously promising. To be released in 2020. Oct 2017

Antonio Galloni

96 Points

Not as yet released, but bottled. Comes as a cleanskin for me. Now, if only I could buy a dozen in cleanskin from a floor stack.

Intense florals – violet and dried rose, dark raspberry, cherry, licorice, spice. Medium-bodied, but deep and sinewy, ripe cherry fruit, intense minerally tightly packed black tea tannin, and despite its darkness and backwards nature, has an alluring mouth-perfume and repressed juiciness throughout; a sure signpost to the direction it will take in the future. And it’s long. A classic.

Gary Walsh

Where in the world does the magic happen?

Giuseppe Cortese, Strada Rabaja, Barbaresco, Piedmont, Province of Cuneo, Italy

Barbaresco
Piedmont
Italy