Winemaker Notes
Ruby red in color, this wine offers aromas of rose, leather, tobacco and emerging notes of violet. The palate is soft, with a persistent finish.
Perfect with red and braised meat, game and aged cheese.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Very pretty 2014 with orange-peel, leather, spice and plum character. Medium body, firm tannins and a juicy finish. Drink or hold.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: Damilano has always been an excellent and reliable producer. The 2014 Lecinquevigne Barolo is an excellent example of this. TASTING NOTES: This wine is a tasteful, soft, and ready-to-drink. Pair its aromas and flavors of ripe fruit with a savory lamb stew. (Tasted: October 11, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Barolo Lecinquevigne is a nice, accessible wine for Barolo newbies. It has a lean appearance with flashes of black licorice and scorched earth, along with some interesting tar or asphalt notes.
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Wine Enthusiast
Fragrant blue-flower, rose and chopped mint aromas lead the nose along with a whiff of eucalyptus. The taut medium-bodied palate offers sour cherry, cranberry, dried sage and a white-pepper note alongside youthfully austere fine-grained tannins and firm acidity. Drink 2021–2026.
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Wine Spectator
Walks the line between dusty cherry fruit and leather and tobacco flavors, buoyed by vibrant acidity and light tannins that leave a dusting of cocoa and spice on the finish. Elegant, yet intense. Best from 2023 through 2042.
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.