Winemaker Notes
The wine presents an intense bouquet with hints of ripe fruit and rose petals, while the palate is persistent and refined, supported by fine, enveloping tannins that lend elegance and pleasant harmony.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This wine shows a combination of lively fruit and elegance that only Nebbiolo can deliver. The Mauro Molino 2021 Barolo offers a terrific and well-priced interpretation of the vintage with redcurrant, blue flower and crushed stone over a fine mouthfeel with tension and energy. This wine jumps the gap into a higher, more exciting level of Barolo intensity. Fruit comes from Annunziata, Berri and Perno on limestone soils. The wine is fermented in stainless steel and moves into large oak casks. The wine offers a pretty, naked portrait of the grape. This simplest wine is one of my favorites.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The medium red 2021 Barolo is the calling card of the Mauro Molino estate and comes from the three vineyards of Annuziata, Berri, and Perno. The nose is quite complete with aromas of fresh wild herbs, cherries, roses, raspberries, and fresh apricots. It’s very finessed and has a fantastic noble structure while also bringing a crunchy mineral texture and mouthwatering feel.
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James Suckling
The citrus, crushed stone and red fruit come through on the nose. Medium-bodied with firm and linear tannins and a vivid finish. Cherry and cedar at the end. Fresh finish. This needs time to soften the fine, firm tannins, but it’s lovely already.
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Wine Spectator
Macerated cherry, raspberry, mineral and tar notes mingle in this tangy red. Marked by vivid acidity and elevated alco- hol, this ends with accents of blood orange and earth.
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.
The center of the production of the world’s most exclusive and age-worthy red wines made from Nebbiolo, the Barolo wine region includes five core townships: La Morra, Monforte d’Alba, Serralunga d’Alba, Castiglione Falletto and the Barolo village itself, as well as a few outlying villages. The landscape of Barolo, characterized by prominent and castle-topped hills, is full of history and romance centered on the Nebbiolo grape. Its wines, with the signature “tar and roses” aromas, have a deceptively light garnet color but full presence on the palate and plenty of tannins and acidity. In a well-made Barolo wine, one can expect to find complexity and good evolution with notes of, for example, strawberry, cherry, plum, leather, truffle, anise, fresh and dried herbs, tobacco and violets.
There are two predominant soil types here, which distinguish Barolo from the lesser surrounding areas. Compact and fertile Tortonian sandy marls define the vineyards farthest west and at higher elevations. Typically the Barolo wines coming from this side, from La Morra and Barolo, can be approachable relatively early on in their evolution and represent the “feminine” side of Barolo, often closer in style to Barbaresco with elegant perfume and fresh fruit.
On the eastern side of the Barolo wine region, Helvetian soils of compressed sandstone and chalks are less fertile, producing wines with intense body, power and structured tannins. This more “masculine” style comes from Monforte d’Alba and Serralunga d’Alba. The township of Castiglione Falletto covers a spine with both soil types.
The best Barolo wines need 10-15 years before they are ready to drink, and can further age for several decades.