Winemaker Notes
Ideal with richly seasoned meats (red or white) or mature cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This impressive wine opens to warm notes of dried cherry with camphor ash, licorice stick and balsam herb. The 2015 Barbaresco Martinenga is an articulate and complex wine that unveils new aromas with each swirl of the glass. It shows firmness and tightness at the core, a good indication of the wine's aging potential. However, what stands out most at this point in the wine's life is the ethereal and graceful nature of the bouquet. The wine is already open and generous and yet promises much more to come.
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James Suckling
A fruity and aromatic Barbaresco with strawberries and hints of dried-cherry character. Full-bodied, layered and rich with plenty of fruit and soft and velvety tannins. Drink or hold.
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Decanter
Elegant raspberry nose, perfumed and complex. Fairly rich palate, with a firm tannin backbone and a long robust finish.
Responsible for some of the most elegant and age-worthy wines in the world, Nebbiolo, named for the ubiquitous autumnal fog (called nebbia in Italian), is the star variety of northern Italy’s Piedmont region. Grown throughout the area, as well as in the neighboring Valle d’Aosta and Valtellina, it reaches its highest potential in the Piedmontese villages of Barolo, Barbaresco and Roero. Outside of Italy, growers are still very much in the experimentation stage but some success has been achieved in parts of California. Somm Secret—If you’re new to Nebbiolo, start with a charming, wallet-friendly, early-drinking Langhe Nebbiolo or Nebbiolo d'Alba.
A wine that most perfectly conveys the spirit and essence of its place, Barbaresco is true reflection of terroir. Its star grape, like that in the neighboring Barolo region, is Nebbiolo. Four townships within the Barbaresco zone can produce Barbaresco: the actual village of Barbaresco, as well as Neive, Treiso and San Rocco Seno d'Elvio.
Broadly speaking there are more similarities in the soils of Barbaresco and Barolo than there are differences. Barbaresco’s soils are approximately of the same two major soil types as Barolo: blue-grey marl of the Tortonion epoch, producing more fragile and aromatic characteristics, and Helvetian white yellow marl, which produces wines with more structure and tannins.
Nebbiolo ripens earlier in Barbaresco than in Barolo, primarily due to the vineyards’ proximity to the Tanaro River and lower elevations. While the wines here are still powerful, Barbaresco expresses a more feminine side of Nebbiolo, often with softer tannins, delicate fruit and an elegant perfume. Typical in a well-made Barbaresco are expressions of rose petal, cherry, strawberry, violets, smoke and spice. These wines need a few years before they reach their peak, the best of which need over a decade or longer. Bottle aging adds more savory characteristics, such as earth, iron and dried fruit.