Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The organic Cavallotto 2021 Barolo Bricco Boschis shows tightness and firmness at this young age, and we can expect this pretty wine to soften and unwind slowly with bottle evolution. There are aromas of tart cherry, redcurrant, iris root and sweet spice delicately layered over a solid, medium-plus mouthfeel. However, what stands out most in the Bricco Boschis is the extreme focus and sharpness of its fruit flavors. This 7.3-hectare site has 45-year-old vines that enjoy panoramic southeast and southwest exposures at 230 to 350 meters in elevation. This wine ages in Slavonian oak casks for 36 months (both 20-hectoliter and 100-hectoliter foudre).
Rating: 95+ -
Wine Spectator
Packed with sweet, ripe fruit, this red features cherry, raspberry and plum flavors, plus a hint of blood orange, all shaded by earth, menthol and tar. Defined by vivid acidity, with dense, chalky tannins underneath. Long finish. All of the elements are there; this just needs time.
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Vinous
The 2021 Barolo Bricco Boschis is just as impressive from bottle as it was from tank a few months ago. Dark and mysterious in the glass, the 2021 offers up an exotic mélange of black cherry, licorice, new leather, espresso, menthol and dried herbs. This is an especially fine Bricco Boschis, a Barolo that finds the Cavallotto family in very fine form.
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.