Winemaker Notes
Ruby red color with brick-like hues. It’s traditional to the nose, reminiscent of ripe fruits and chocolate. A full-bodied wine with great structure, elegant in its tannin and very persistent.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Fermented with indigenous yeasts at controlled temperature for at least 10 days, then macerated on the skins for 3-4 weeks using the submerged cap technique, Bovio's Gattera is finished with 24 months of ageing in Slavonian oak. A quintessentially traditional Barolo from an austere MGA, its earthiness is a signature. Slightly garnet in the glass, its smoky woodland aromas shine, with earthy strawberry and rhubarb fruits. The fruit is vibrant on the palate with a dried cherry flavour, good acidity and great intensity. Silky at first, it has a velvety mid-palate with a dusty finish. Its slight lightness of concentration is typical of this vintage. A frank interpretation.
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James Suckling
This is very tight just now, with a compact bead of red fruit, nutty spice and dried flowers running through the wine. Medium-bodied with firm tannins and a tight, savory finish. Excellent promise, but wait for it to open and expand. Try from 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Barolo Gattera is another expression from La Morra with soft tannins and a very silky texture. Gattera is characterized by bright fruit tones, cassis and dried raspberry. You might also recognize powdered licorice and pressed blue flower. There is a hint of cherry sweetness on the close, and Gattera offers a little more tannic structure and firmness.
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.