Winemaker Notes
Pair with grilled red meat, game and aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Sweet-smelling dried red cherries, potpourri and herbal accents, all leading to a medium-weight palate. Has approachable, easy, red-berry flavors. A lighter style.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of wild berry, pressed rose, ground clove and a balsamic note of menthol lead the way. Elegantly structured, the youthfully austere, precise palate delivers cherry, cranberry, star anise and crushed mint while bright acidity and tightly wound tannins provide the taut framework. Give it time to fully unwind and develop. Drink 2024–2029.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Marcenasco is a trademarked name that belongs to the Renato Ratti estate, but it also refers to a vineyard in the La Morra township. The 2014 Barolo Marcenasco offers dark and rich aromas of pressed rose with dark fruit, smoke and tar. The fruit almost appears to be on the ripe side, yet the wine also reveals the depth and the sophistication of aged Nebbiolo. In the mouth, Marcenasco is a bit thinner than your average vintage, and it has touches of sour cherry fruit on the close.
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Wine Spectator
Mint, fresh-cut hay and juniper aromas give way to cherry and underbrush flavors. Rich in the middle, conceding to assertive tannins on the finish. Best from 2021 through 2035.
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.