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The Bernard Roth Archives

The Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium presents notes of Bernard Roth who always has something to say, particularly about wine and food.

We are happy that Bernard, who has sampled so many wines, has shared his notes with us. We do have, or have had for sale a few of the wines Bernard writes about, and we include a link to our stock page whenever it is a producer we carry (but since the stock page is kept up-to-date and the wines are sold, don't expect any but the newest of wines to show up in our stock!). Mostly though, since we specialize in County of Santa Barbara Wine and Central Coast Wine, we don't carry a lot of the wines Bernard writes about. But we think it is important that you be able to have an idea what they're like in case you are planning to buy some somewhere, or have them in your own collection. Enjoy.

Here are Bernard's notes from April 18, 1999:

93 Elio Altare Vigna Larigi

Not wanting to risk a possible decline of quality with age, it was time to pop the cork. Dinner was at Via Vai in Montecito (CA), with probably the worst service we've had at this usually reliable Italian restaurant. It took 30 minutes to seat us even with a reservation (at least they opened the wine for us while we stood waiting--we drank it out of Italian tumblers). Entrees that finally came from the kitchen included a nearly cold pizza, a moderately hot lasagna, a piping hot cruet of spaghetti with shellfish covered by pizza dough and baked, and finally, 10 minutes after the others arrived, a bowl of papardelle with porcini and chicken. Fortunately they comped us 4 desserts, 3 of which were fine, but the panna cotta was dense and rubbery. Oh, the wine...
 
93 Elio Altare Vigna Larigi (Barbera)--From a moderately successful vintage for barbera. The color is still dark purple.  The nose is decent but not showing much intensity or complexity. The flavors lean toward blackberry (!), plum, toast, vanilla, with some earth, leather. Good tannic support, acidity in check (not especially good for barbera), muddled mid-palate. Overall, bit too much oak showing itself. Finish is dominated by the oak and dense fruit. Not a bad showing, and it did hold its own with the food, but not a particularly fun wine. Clearly over-internationalized. I'd rather have had a more traditional barbera. At ~$35 on release, this is a QPR sin. Even top producers can make disappointing wines.  Rating: No better than 88/100.  

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