Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A fruitier 2016 from this producer with orange peel, plums and hints of strawberries. Full body, firm and creamy tannins and a delicious finish. Shows lots of fruit. Drinkable now, but better after 2021.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Bovio 2016 Barolo Gattera (with just 3,400 bottles released) is a true beauty. The Gattera cru in La Morra is planted to 70-year-old vines. Half the vineyard was ripped out in 2019 and was replanted earlier this year, but this vintage is made entirely from old vines. There is a touch of ripeness here, you almost taste the grape skins, but you also get rich and enduring aromas of red cherry, plum, spice and iron-rich soil. The wine's balance is impressive, albeit on the powerful side. This bottle is a good candidate for cellar aging.
Rating: 94+ -
Wine Enthusiast
Woodland-berry, iris and crushed mint aromas take center stage on this elegant, fragrant red. The vibrant, medium-bodied palate offers succulent black cherry, raspberry compote and star anise framed in polished tannins. Fresh acidity keeps it balanced. 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.