Winemaker Notes
Very deep carmine red with nuances that tend towards garnet with age. Austere and complex aromas with notes of roses, spice, humus and medicinal herbs. Solid and well-structured palate with silky and elegant tannins. A satisfying, lingering finish with great personality.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Here's a beautiful treat from a boutique winery and bed & breakfast (where the guest rooms are named after local grapes) overlooking the hills of Treiso. The Ada Nada 2013 Barbaresco Riserva Cichin is enjoying a perfect moment in its drinking life right now. The wine is immediately open and expressive with dried cherry and blackberry, licorice, tar, grilled herb, iron ore and candied orange or apricot. Each aroma shows gorgeous intensity, and they all fit together with careful precision.
Rating: 94+ -
James Suckling
Shows lots of dried fruit and spices, including dried rose petals, dried cherries and cranberries. There are also undertones of pink grapefruit rind and citrus, as well as baking spices. Full-bodied with a compact core of cleverly wound tannins and a long 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.