Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Here's a blast from the past. This wine has not been produced since the 2004 vintage, so it's a real pleasure to rediscover it today. The Bovio 2016 Barolo Parussi draws its fruit from Castiglione Falletto in a site with southern exposures positioned 230 meters above sea level. This is a true treasure, a wine with beautiful balance and intensity. The aromas are precise and focused with wild berry, dried rose, crushed limestone and candied fruit. In the mouth, the wine is velvety and structured, with fine textural impact. A mere 1,900 bottles were released. Bovio's Barolo Parussi, the comeback kid, is another home run from Castiglione Falletto in the classic 2016 vintage.
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James Suckling
Beautiful aromas of dried flowers and fresh strawberries with some citrus. Lavender and red roses, too. Full-bodied with really ripe, polished tannins and gorgeous fruit. It is wonderful to taste (even drink) now, but give it time to show what it has. Better after 2022.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of underbrush, leather, camphor and scorched earth slowly take shape in the glass. Full bodied and firmly structured, the solid palate features dried black cherry, orange zest, licorice and clove set against a backbone of assertive, close-grained tannins. Give it time to fully develop. Drink after 2026.
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.