Winemaker Notes
From this cru come wines of great structure but with elegance and complexity. The initial aromas are fruity and followed by floral aspects, then spices, all open and intense. Excellent cellaring potential.
This wine finds its best matches at the table, with first courses of prosciutto, salami, Alba beef tartare and vitello tonnato. The wine is best with second courses of red meat in general, but also grilled fish or white meats, or with hard and aged cheeses. Desserts with dark chocolate are also a good match, or it can be enjoyed as a “vino da meditazione” (a wine for meditiation) by itself.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The organic Cavallotto 2019 Barolo Riserva Bricco Boschis Vigna San Giuseppe shows thick texture and density with dark fruits, plum and blackberry layered with extra depth. This wine makes a big impact on the palate and wraps lavishly over the senses. This is one of the most opulent and full-bodied editions I have yet tasted. The fruit is sourced from a 2.38-hectare site with 60-year-old vines with southwest exposures at 310 and 340 meters in elevation. The wine sees 60 months of careful maturation in 20-hectoliter and 100-hectoliter Slavonian botti.
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Wine Spectator
Beginning to hit its stride, this elegant red features a finely wrought structure of acidity and tannins, while plum, cherry, licorice, tar, iron and eucalyptus flavors abound. Showing plenty of detail, this is corralled on the long aftertaste by vibrant acidity.
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Vinous
The 2019 Barolo Riserva Bricco Boschis Vigna San Giuseppe is silky, elegant and quite refined, much more so than it was when I tasted it a few months prior. That makes me think it might be approachable earlier than I had originally envisaged. Floral overtones and beautifully sculpted Nebbiolo fruit are the signatures. Bright acids and beams of tannin shape the persistent mid-palate and finish.
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.