The 1978 Monfortino is the first vintage produced entirely by the Conternos from the Cascina Francia vineyard in Serralunga. I have had the pleasure to taste this wine a handful of times previously, but this was the first time where we gave the wine a solid four hours decanting time prior to pouring. The result was the finest expression of the ’78 Monfortino that I have had the pleasure to taste, as the wine simply opened up completely, while never losing any of its depth, power or purity. Not surprisingly, the 1978 Monfortino is a monumental bottle of Barolo, and a very strong candidate for wine of the vintage. The magical bouquet is deep, profound and wide open with four hour’s air, offering up a beautiful blend of cassis, black cherries, black licorice, roses, tobacco, herbs, smoke and earth. On the palate the wine is deep, pure and absolutely stunning, with perfect balance, First Growth focus and breed, an impenetrable core of candied fruit, well-integrated tannins and acids, and a monumentally long and complex finish. This is as good as Barolo gets, and the scary thing is that it may even get better with further bottle age. 98+