Winemaker Notes
Perfect with elaborate dishes such as roasted meats, braised beef stews, and with hard aged cheeses. Excellent also with truffle based dishes.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2014 Barolo Cerretta has a fairly dark fruited profile for the vintage, with dried black cherry, cooling menthol, and leather. The palate is vibrant with orange zest, raspberry seed, and black tea. The Cerretta is in a great place for drinking now or over the next ten years. Drink 2021-2031
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Wine Spectator
This red displays beautiful cherry, plum, eucalyptus and spice flavors, backed by a firm structure. Shows tension and energy, with a long finish. Best from 2022 through 2035.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I tasted two new (for me) wines from Davide Fregonese and both were made with fruit from vineyard sites in Serralunga d'Alba. The 2014 Barolo Cerretta shows a softer, more floral side compared to the Barolo Prapò. You get pronounced aromas of rose hip, dried violet and wild berry. The wine is silky and smooth with integrated tannins. Of the two wines, this one strikes me as slightly more immediate and accessible.
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.