Winemaker Notes
Ruby red with orange hues. The nose is intense, hints of dried rose, licorice, tobacco and leather; with aging emerges the goudron. The mouth is dry, robust but velvety; complex tannic structure and long finish.
Pairs well with roasted and braised red meats, game and aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Opening to rich dark fruit and thick concentration, the 2015 Barolo Bussia Sergio Barale is a wine of medium to full weight with good textural richness. There are some notes of soft, red fruit scattered among thick waves of dark fruit intensity. This wine sits firmly on the palate. The grapes are fermented with ambient yeasts and left on the skins for up to 30 days. The wine then ages in 30-hectoliter botti for three years.
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James Suckling
Some haunting and mellow notes of sweetly perfumed dried flowers, walnuts, pink grapefruit and musk. The palate is brimming with perfume too, with dried pink-fruit flavors and a tarry edge to the finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of forest floor, camphor, violet and stewed prune slowly appear in the glass along with spicy notes. Full-bodied and enveloping, the forward, accessible palate reflects the heat of the vintage, featuring the same prune note as the nose, as well as dried cherry and licorice framed in velvety, fine grained tannins. Drink 2023–2028.
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.