Sandrone Barolo Le Vigne (1.5 Liter Magnum) 2011
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Wine & Spirits
This vintage marks the first time Luciano Sandrone has included fruit from a 3.7-acre plot in Castiglione Falletto’s Villero cru in Le Vigne. Sandrone acquired the site via a long-term lease in early 2011, just in time to manage it through the growing season. It joins fruit from Merli in Novello, Baudana in Serralunga, and Vignane in Barolo, which Sandrone has vinfied separately and woven into a seamless, opulent wine. Polished tannins create a glide path for vibrant raspberry and cherry flavors accented with clove, nutmeg and vanilla. While the rich flavors and silky texture are alluring now, this has long cellaring potential.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2011 Barolo Le Vigne is an opulent and shapely wine with a point of extra cherry softness that you don't get in the 2011 Barolo Cannubi Boschis. That wine shows more austerity and vigor compared to this expression. But Le Vigne delivers an unexpected touch of roundness and opulence that fits the historic profile of this beautiful rendition of Nebbiolo. It presents a slightly more immediate style but it also has the inner grace and poise for a long cellar evolution.
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Wine Enthusiast
Underbrush, scorched earth, dried berry, violet and spice aromas slowly emerge on this generous, polished wine. On the palate, fine-grained tannins frame dried black cherry, grilled herb and anise. It’s almost accessible and is going to offer terrific drinking in the near and mid-term. Enjoy 2017–2026.
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James Suckling
A wonderfully tight and polished young red with dark berry, plum and citrus character. Roses too. Full body, firm tannins and a bright finish. Better in 2017.
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Wine Spectator
A taut, high-strung version, with edgy tannins backing the cherry, licorice, tobacco and tar flavors. Fresh and long. Gains polish with air. Best from 2018 through 2030.
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Luciano Sandrone is one of the most iconic producers in Barolo, and his is both a well known and extraordinary story. He started to learn viticulture at the age of 14 or 15, and after years of work as a cellarman he depleted his life savings and purchased his first vineyard on the Cannubi hill in 1977, though he could only manage his land on the weekends while he continued to work. He made his first vintage in 1978, in the garage of his parents, and then spent years refining his ideas about how to make a wine of distinction and utmost quality that respected the traditions of Barolo while incorporating new ideas and understanding about viticulture and vinification. He made every vintage until 1999 at home, until the winery he constructed in 1998 was ready for use.
Sandrone's wines are sometimes described as straddling the modern and traditional styles in the region: elegant, attractive and easy to appreciate right from their first years in bottle, but with no less power and structure than traditional Barolos. Along with the extremely low yields in the vineyard and an obsessive attention to training, pruning and harvesting, Sandrone has a very rational approach in the cellar. This approach, however, is also unique and outside of simple classification: Sandrone subjects his wines to medium-length maceration period, shorter than traditional, but makes limited use of new oak in the maturation process, which takes place in 500 liter tonneaux, all signs of a more traditional approach in the cellar. The entire range of wines, all limited in production, are jewels of impeccably balanced concentration and precision, and the ability to age for long periods of time.
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.