Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This exceptional wine is deep and dusky, packed with mineral, floral and savory notes that will blossom with time. It shows iron, iodine and rose petals in the nose, then lithe tannins wrap up cranberries, bitter orange, and sour cherry.
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Wine Enthusiast
This exceptional wine is deep and dusky, packed with mineral, floral and savory notes that will blossom with time. It shows iron, iodine and rose petals in the nose, then lithe tannins wrap up cranberries, bitter orange, and sour cherry.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Conterno Fantino 2020 Barolo Mosconi Vigna Ped has aromas of brandied cherry, Luxardo cherry liqueur, oak toast, licorice root and dark rye. This Barolo is relatively tight in terms of its texture, with good intensity, chalky tannins and sufficient fruit to stand up to the tannins.
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Wine Spectator
Well-defined flavors of cherry, raspberry, rose and wild herbs are the hallmarks of this elegant yet firmly structured red. There's a mineral undercurrent and a crisp, persistent aftertaste.
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.