Winemaker Notes
An aristocratic wine that finds its ideal match in game, jugged hare, braised beef, chamois, roe buck saddle, wild boar, venison, and pigeon. Superb with dishes garnished with white truffles from Alba, like cardoon flan with fonduta and duck ravioli.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Enrico VI ushers forth generous layers of milk chocolate, spice, creamy vanilla and red cherry. The wine boasts deep concentration, bright berry flavors and firm tannins that make a big and bold impact in the mouth: it’s plush, smooth and seductive on the finish. Drink 2012 to 2020.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2004 Barolo Vigna Enrico VI is made from the Villero vineyard in Castiglione Falletto. This is a more mineral-driven, balsamic expression of Nebbiolo. Medium in body, the wine shows plenty of complexity as it opens in the glass, along with the mentholated notes that are typical of this site. Ideally the wine needs a few years in bottle to come together, but it is also delicious today with a few hours of aeration. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2024.
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Wine Spectator
Beautiful aromas of plum, rose and fresh mushroom follow through to a full body, with firm yet silky tannins and a long, caressing finish. Polished and refined. Best after 2012. 850 cases made.
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.