Winemaker Notes
Intense garnet in color, the nose shows floral and spicy notes perfectly blended: tobacco, cherries, cocoa and fresh raspberry highlights. The palate is rich, full-bodied and elegant.
An aristocratic wine that finds its match with game, jugged hare, braised beef, chamois, saddle of venison, wild boar, deer and pigeon. Superb with dishes garnished with white Alba truffle: cardoon flan with fondue and duck ravioli.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas of walnuts, dried strawberries, vanilla and cedar lead to a palate that has a smooth core of sweet red-plum and cherry flavors. This will fill out nicely in the next few years, around a core of really fresh and vibrant red fruit.
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Decanter
This carefully crafted blend of various parcels is aged both in barriques and large casks. The nose is rich, even flamboyant, with cherry aromas and an opulent, oaky presence too. It's velvety, full-bodied and highly concentrated, displaying energy and punch, managing to be both assertive and harmonious. The tannins are well integrated and the finish is chocolatey and long.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Monfalletto is a name registered to the Cordero di Montezemolo family. However, the 2015 Barolo Monfalletto actually sees most (about 70%) of its fruit come from the Gattera cru and the rest from the Annunziata vineyard, both located in La Morra. The family feels that Monfalletto could be its own MGA, but that never happened. In the portfolio lineup, this wine counts as the entry-level Barolo, or a "classico" Barolo, as this category is more appropriately known locally. The wine offers elegantly minty aromas with more red fruit aromas than black fruit per se. There are distinct floral notes of violets and rose bud that give the wine an immediately attractive and accessible personality.
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Wine Enthusiast
Rose, iris, exotic spice, toast and balsamic notes of camphor mingle with whiffs of French oak. Full bodied with good intensity, the palate offers dried cherry, cranberry compote, coffee bean and licorice framed in tightly knit, closegrained tannins that leave a firm finish. Drink 2022–2027.
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Wine Spectator
A whiff and caress of new oak wraps around the ripe cherry, licorice and eucalyptus flavors in this medium-bodied red. Spice notes linger on the tobacco-tinged finish. Best from 2022 through 2037.
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Wine & Spirits
This is a rich, full-bodied Barolo, its flavors of warmed cherry and raspberry layered with dark chocolate, tobacco and baking spice. The fruit comes from estate vineyards in La Morra, and the wine aged in barrels for about two years. Best Buy
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.