Winemaker Notes
Very intense ruby red with garnet reflections. Fresh scents of small red fruits, raspberry, redcurrant and wild roses that evolve into licorice and spice notes. Warm, elegant, persistent with a long finish, soft tannins.
Serve with red meats and aged cheese.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Elio Altare gives me a bit of his winemaker's wisdom: "Wine is like a marriage—it needs to be consummated early." With that in mind, the 2015 Barolo is engineered for near- and medium-term drinking with lots of plump fruit that jumps right out. The wine is open and inviting. Dark fruit is followed by warm tones of tilled earth and cured tobacco. Grapes are harvested from different parcels in four vineyard passes. In 2015, the team had the time to wait for each parcel to mature properly because the harvest was relaxed and spread over more comfortable timing. This Barolo would match up nicely with a mild liver dish.
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Wine & Spirits
A dark, generous Barolo, this is a blend of fruit from four communes (La Morra, Castiglione Falletto, Serralunga d’Alba and Barolo) that underwent a short maceration followed by two years in French oak barriques. Notes of sweet spice and caramelized orange peel enrich the wine’s bold black-cherry and raspberry fruit. The tannins are ripe and round, too, making the wine approachable in youth, if you appreciate oak driven flavors.
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Wine Spectator
A ripe style, boasting plum, black cherry and sun-kissed hay flavors, with a hint of vanilla. The lush fruit and texture is offset by dense tannins. All the components converge on the long finish. Best from 2021 through 2038.
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.