Winemaker Notes
Optimal structure but with already-soft tannins, and with an open, intense perfume that gives this Barolo characteristics of both power and great elegance. Complex and fragrant, can be enjoyed young but has great aging potential.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Full of details of prunes, stony salinity, earthy notes and forest floor, tannins firm and slightly sticky on the gums, but with crisp acidity. It's almost austere on the finish, but dynamic and balanced nonetheless, leaving room for a refreshing hint of menthol. An old-fashioned wine, perhaps even a bit funky, but sumptuously complex.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Opening to a dark Nebbiolo color, the organic Cavallotto 2020 Barolo Bricco Boschis is a little richer in this vintage. The quality of aromas also takes on a bigger profile with dried blackberry, licorice and earthy black truffle. This apparently comes from the fruit but is also shaped by the wine's long aging regime that sees 36 months in Slavonian oak casks.
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Wine Spectator
This spicy red delivers cherry, raspberry, earth and eucalyptus flavors on a broad, dense frame, yet still remains fluid. Burly tannins put a lock on the finish.
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Jeb Dunnuck
A youthful saturated red/ruby color, the 2020 Barolo Bricco Boschis leaps from the glass with tangy aromas of sour cherries, orange peel, clove (it smells like heffeweisen), and dried earth. The palate is lovely, revealing a refined structure, ripe, velvety tannins, and a pure core of concentration with a ripe yet weightless feel. It has good depth and remains fresh, and its structure lasts long on the finish, but so does its fruit. I liked the palate more than the nose at this stage, and it’s likely going to improve with time in bottle over the next 12-15 years. Drink 2026-2040.
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Vinous
The 2020 Barolo Bricco Boschis is beautifully rich and resonant right out of the gate. Black cherry, blackberry, licorice, cloves, leather and scorched earth are amplified in this decidedly dense, large-scaled Barolo from Cavallotto. There's a good bit of finesse here, but the 2020 could stand to shed some baby fat.
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.