Winemaker Notes
An homage to a childhood nickname, this wine represents the "wild airplane" of Clerico's personality. Playful yet full of purpose, vineyard specific Barolo from a modernist.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2017 Barolo Aeroplanservai reveals a brooding bouquet of black cherry, licorice, leather, and tar, followed by a grounding and firm palate with black cherry pit, turned forest earth, cedar, and burnt orange citrus. The structure is balanced, though imposing in its youth. This wine is prime for cellaring 5 or more years and drinking 2026-2046.
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James Suckling
The aromas of flowers, such as roses and lilacs, as well as strawberries and cherries are compelling. Full-bodied, yet very polished and refined, with chewy yet polished tannins and a long, flavorful finish. Tight at the end. Give it three or four years to soften.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This celebrated wine is released in one tranche of 100 magnums and another of 5,500 bottles with several different label designs, one featuring a hot air balloon and another with a more psychedelic label. The 2017 Barolo Aeroplan Servaj offers rich concentration and a robust center of gravity that is indicative of Serralunga d'Alba, the village where this fruit is cultivated. This is always one of my favorite wines in the Clerico portfolio. This vintage reveals extra power and elegance that pull in both directions, but it is what ultimately gives this wine harmony.
Rating: 95(+) -
Wine Spectator
A broad, spicy style, this delivers cherry, plum, earth and vanilla flavors against a backdrop of light, dusty tannins. Tightly wound and a touch rustic, it's also long.
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.