Winemaker Notes
This wine goes well with red meat dishes, game, and aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Balsamic aromas of camphor and leather mingle earthy whiffs of forest floor, violet and wild berry. Savory, focused and youthfully firm, the palate delivers crushed raspberry, star anise and baking spice framed in taut, fine-grained tannins. Fresh acidity keeps it balanced. Drink 2027–2039.
Editors' Choice -
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2019 Adriano Marco e Vittorio Basarin is a solid Barbaresco. TASTING NOTES: This wine shines with aromas and flavors of fragrant flowers, savory spices, and dusty earth notes. Try it with a slow-cooked lamb stew. (Tasted: June 15, 2024, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Spectator
A supple, elegant red introduced by rose, strawberry, cherry, white pepper and earth aromas. Complex and well-delineated on the palate, with excellent harmony and intensity. Reveals lingering eucalyptus and mineral notes. Best from 2024 through 2040.
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.