Winemaker Notes
Garnet red in color with orange reflections. An intense bouquet with notes of violet, balsamic and small red berries. The palate is intense, elegant and persistent, with nuances of red fruit, tobacco, licorice and with ageing truffles and cinnamon.
Barolo Brunate is a wine with a great character, which goes perfectly with roasts, braised meat, game and dishes with mushrooms or truffles.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Dark berries and fresh flowers on the nose with hints of toffee and leather, following through to a medium body, with tight and integrated, chewy tannins and a linear finish. Sweet fruit in a pinpointed center palate. Very tight and structured. Give it three or four years of bottle age.
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Decanter
Fewer than 3,000 bottles are produced of this cru in La Morra. Here, Barolo is less brick in colour and less austere compared to the Helvetian soils in the east. However, Brunate is one of the more structured crus of this west part of Barolo, and often requires more time than the other cru wines of Damilano. It shows a dark profile of fruit, with rose aromas and minty notes yet a great sweet finish of pipe tobacco. On the palate its sternness of chalky tannins is well balanced by concentration of fruit and refreshing yet not aggressive acidity.
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Wine Enthusiast
Eucalyptus and tobacco aromas mingle with floral and spice notes on this full-bodied red. The taut palate offers juicy red cherry, pomegranate and licorice alongside taut, fine-grained tannins that leave a drying close.
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Wine Spectator
Intense aromas of cherry, menthol, tar and licorice are the hallmarks of this burly red. This is like an awkward teenager today, showing firm grip on the finish. The lasting impression is tannic, with ample fruit for balance.
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.