Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This wine comes from a 1.8-hectare plot in Serralunga d'Alba. The 2014 Barolo Badarina benefits from southeast exposures for greater power and textural richness. The bouquet offers earthy aromas of truffle, forest floor and tangy berry on the close. Those hearty soil or rust-like aromas are often more present in Nebbiolo from this celebrated village. Ultimately, this wine is long and profound, with pretty menthol notes on the finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
Dark-skinned berry, rose, dark spice and menthol aromas mingle together in the glass. On the full-bodied palate, youthfully austere fine-grained tannins give taut polished support to juicy Marasca cherry, cranberry, licorice and a sprinkling of cinnamon. It’s still young and needs a few more years to fully develop. Drink 2024–2034. Cellar Selection
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Wine Spectator
This red starts out with fresh cherry fruit, picking up tar, tobacco and eucalyptus accents. Muscular tannins squelch the finish for now, but there appears to be enough fruit to match. Best from 2023 through 2042.
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Decanter
Simone Grimaldi is now taking over from his mother Bruna. Although based in Grinzane Cavour, one of their best wines comes from Badarina in Serralunga. It has a lightly toasty nose, with a slight baked character and aromas of red fruits, cherries and menthol. It shows concentration with firm underlying tannins, and is still austere and rather grippy, but the finish is spicy, complex and long.
Growing grapes and crafting high quality wines have always been Bruna Grimaldi’s family tradition. Born and raised in the hills that link Grinzane Cavour to Serralunga d’Alba, in the heart of Langhe, Unesco World Heritage, Bruna Grimaldi is a small family-owned winery that since the early 60s produce authentic and terroir-driven wines. Careful work in the vineyard, commitment in the winery, respect for the environment are key aspects of Bruna Grimaldi’s philosophy: a passion for wine that has been handed down for decades in Langhe region where the best plots are selected for the production of Barolo. This history talks about the territory, in full respect of the tradition.
The estate farms organically 14ha (34 acres) of vineyards in the Barolo region and in the neighbouring villages. Bruna and her husband Franco have been recently joined by their son Simone, enologist, and Martina, who both proudly represent the fourth generation and whose aim is to continue the family tradition of producing soulful wines.
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.