Winemaker Notes
2011 was a hot year that gave good-structured grapes all throughout the zone of Barolo. Monforte once again displays wines with great body and full of tannins, a distinguishing characteristic year after year. On the nose, Pressenda 2011 has clean aromas of red fruit not quite open, while in the mouth its powerful taste would do well with equally powerful dishes.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2011 Barolo Pressenda is a generous and exuberant wine that has thick black fruit woven within its very core. There is enough fiber and textural richness here to match roasted guinea fowl with black truffles baked under its skin for extra flavor intensity.
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Wine Spectator
A smooth, fluid red, featuring cherry and strawberry flavors that are beautifully integrated with the vibrant texture. Delivers a lingering aftertaste of licorice, earth and spice. Drink now through 2028.
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Wine Enthusiast
Alluring aromas of violet, rose, dark berry and a hint of cured meat emerge on this firmly structured wine. The palate is rather extracted, offering rich black cherry, chocolate, tobacco and sweet spice alongside grippy tannins.
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.