Winemaker Notes
The most serious of the wines from Clerico every year, the most powerful in concentration and structure of the three single vineyards offered. The name of this wine reveals the importance of the vineyard: the "Ciabot" is a house among the vines, almost a shelter for tools; while "Mentin" is the owner from whom Domenico bought his plot of land.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2017 Barolo Ciabot Mentin amplifies the site with its notes of medicinal herbs, raspberry leather, cedar, and gentian root. It offers a savory palate of tea leaf, dried strawberry, and orange rind, while the tannic structure emerges on the back end, but it’s in balance. Hold 3-5 years and drink 2024-2042.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Following a few tweaks to its denomination identity over the years, this wine has returned to its celebrated Ginestra MGA identity, showcasing fruit from old vines in Monforte d'Alba planted in 1978. The Domenico Clerico 2017 Barolo Ginestra Ciabot Mentin is a landmark wine that has forever dazzled and delighted, thanks to the purity and power of its fruit and its fine textural fiber. This 2017 vintage reveals a hint of vintage ripeness with candied cherry and orange peel, but the wine maintains its depth and complexity with plenty of tarry smoke and licorice.
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James Suckling
Sweet-berry, watermelon and candied-lemon aromas follow through to a medium body with firm, silky tannins and a fruity finish. Refined and polished. Fresh for the vintage. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
A smooth, balanced red, deftly displaying macerated cherry, plum and currant flavors. Flashes of rose and licorice add depth, while a tobacco element emerges on the lingering finish.
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.