Tasting Notes: Rocche Rivera is a cru within a cru, so to speak: a south-facing vineyard situated at 300 meters altitude within the Castiglione Falletto cru of Scarrone, and immediately adjacent to the fabled Rocche di Castiglione. Though Oddero owns a notable four hectares in Scarrone—in a contiguous plot stretching from the bottom to the top of the hill—“Rocche Rivera” comprises only the upper portion with the most favorable exposition; the middle part and the less-favorably-oriented upper sides are blended into the Barolo “Tradizionale,” and the lower-lying section is bottled as Langhe Nebbiolo. This high-altitude, well-drained vineyard of sand and limestone produces wines of sizzling mineral-driven tension and notable refinement, and this 2011 possesses those qualities in spades. Its flavors of ripe, dark mentholated cherries and herbal spice are delicious and rife with energy, but the wine is somewhat youthfully reticent—a tense-muscled sprinter still coiled over the starting block.