Winemaker Notes
Recommended with savory meat, aged cheese and local products matched with truffle
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Lots of cherry, raspberry and nutty aromas here, together with floral and loamy-mineral notes. Medium-bodied with firm tannins that are coated with bright fruit and minerals. Long finish. Austere now, but shows such promise. Hold until after 2023.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Broccardo 2018 Barolo San Giovanni is lithe and delicate in a manner that fruit from Monforte d'Alba manages so nicely. The bouquet is quite expressive with wild fruit, cassis, blue flower, herb and dusty earth. There is a slightly sweet interlude as the wine warms in the glass with allspice or baking spice. This 2018 edition (with 4,000 bottles made) is quite soft and lean to the palate with a medium finish and a rather open and accessible personality.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of black-skinned berry, underbrush and leather emerge from the glass. The elegantly structured palate offers dried black cherry, licorice and white pepper alongside firm, polished tannins. Drink 2024–2033.
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.