Brunate, Blood, and Bravado: Why Rinaldi’s 2010 Barolo Is Worth Your Sins

The First Sip Is a Summons

There are wines you drink, and there are wines that grab you by the throat, slap you awake, and whisper, “You are mortal. Worship me.” Giuseppe Rinaldi’s 2010 Barolo Brunate is the latter. It doesn’t arrive politely with a handshake—it storms the gates like a general drunk on prophecy and power. If you’re looking for easy comfort, keep walking. This is not your velvet robe Pinot. This is war paint in a glass.

A Dark Jewel in the Chalice

Pour it, and the first thing you notice is the color: a deep garnet with that sly orange rim—the calling card of Nebbiolo’s noble age. It looks like the stained glass of an abandoned cathedral, glowing with both reverence and menace. Bring the glass to your face and it’s an olfactory opera: dried roses left too long on a marble grave, truffles pulled from Piedmont earth still clinging with soil, black cherries lacquered in smoke, and a whisper of leather jackets left in the rain. There’s tar too—real, unapologetic tar, the kind that sticks to your boots after a long walk through forgotten roads.

A Palate Like a Pagan Ritual

On the tongue, Brunate 2010 is less wine, more initiation rite. The tannins don’t just sit politely—they drag their claws across your palate like satyrs at a midnight feast. There’s structure here, iron-fisted and unapologetic, but also a strange, seductive grace. Flavors unfurl in waves: sour cherries drenched in balsamic reduction, bitter herbs that taste like medicine for the soul, and a smoky undercurrent that feels half altar incense, half gunpowder. It moves from austerity to euphoria like a well-scored tragedy—tight, brutal, then suddenly soaring. The finish? Long as myth, echoing with licorice, tobacco, and a haunting memory of forest floor after rain.

The Man Behind the Madness

Giuseppe Rinaldi—“Citrico” to his friends, curmudgeon to his enemies—wasn’t in the business of pandering. He made Barolo that sneered at modernity, wines that refused to dress up in new oak and makeup. His Brunate comes from one of the most hallowed crus in La Morra, a slope of clay and marl that breeds Nebbiolo with equal parts elegance and menace. 2010 was a vintage sung by angels—cool nights, slow ripening, balance etched into every berry. Rinaldi harnessed that with the fury of a prophet, producing something both rooted in tradition and defiantly alive.

How to Unleash It

Don’t even think about popping and pouring. This beast needs air—decant at least three hours, or better yet, let it brood overnight. Serve it at cellar temp (around 16°C) and watch it open like a serpent uncoiling. Food? Forget your dainty amuse-bouches. This demands roasted lamb bleeding into rosemary, tajarin tangled with white truffle, or a hunk of braised veal shank still steaming with marrow. You’ll want fat and salt to spar with its grip. And yes, if you’re a savage like me, drink it with nothing but hard cheese and silence.

A Relic Worth Hoarding

Here’s the thing: wines like this aren’t just liquid pleasure—they’re cultural artifacts. Rinaldi’s 2010 Brunate has been showered with critical adoration, often north of 96 points, and production was limited. This is a cellar trophy that will evolve for decades, its stern edges softening into velvet, its brooding aromatics deepening into something almost sacred. It’s already a collector’s darling, the kind of bottle that disappears from auction catalogs in a blink. If you’re the sort who likes to brag, this is the wine you quietly pull out when the room has gone still.

The Final Benediction

Why drink this? Because life is too short to sip the safe stuff. Because Rinaldi made Barolo not as commerce but as confrontation. Because the 2010 Brunate doesn’t just taste like Piedmont—it tastes like history, rebellion, and devotion pressed into liquid. Miss it, and you’ll miss one of the last true testaments of a winemaker who refused to bow.

Drink it now if you like your gods furious, or cellar it for twenty years if you prefer them wise. Either way, it will outlast you.