Winemaker Notes
The 2018 Barolo Ravera Riserva Vigna Elena is an extremely charming wine, which does not lack in balance and vitality of the sip. Also in this vintage, the Barolo Ravera Riserva Vigna Elena gives us an ascending climax of lovely aromas: from ripe red fruit to rose petals and violets, then passing from incense to licorice and notes of medicinal herbs. The mouthfeel is supported by an excellent freshness and tannic texture, but well balanced. The persistence is remarkable, and it is one of the many factors contributing to make this wine particularly important.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Medium red brick-colored, the 2018 Barolo Docg Ravera Riserva Vigna Elena offers a sweet floral perfume of rose petals, potpourri, candied raspberries, sweet sage, and fresh rosemary. Medium-bodied, it has mouthwatering freshness and a more linear and focused feel, with highly refined tannins, mouthwatering acidity, a saline mineral undertone that floats through the palate, and a long finish. It’s only going to improve with time and will be best enjoyed 2027-2050.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Elvio Cogno 2018 Barolo Riserva Ravera Vigna Elena (with 4,000 bottles made) reveals light tertiary definition with smoky tar, underbrush, crushed flower, dried cooking herbs, river reed and button mushroom. The pretty evolution of this wine underlines the high tones, and the wine has lost its baby fat. The fine tannins are polished and glossy.
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Wine Enthusiast
A rush of aromas of tart sour cherries, still on the tree, turn heads. Notes of macerating raspberries, warmed roses, mixed spices and wild thyme all swirl in the glass of this beautiful Barolo. Each sniff rewards the next. Lifted, with a gracefulness that most wines dream of, the palate shines with fresh cranberry, strawberry and hints of red plum jam with a touch anise and clove. Fine tannins run through the wine keep the tension as mouthwatering acidity ensures that the palate remains engaged in explore each and every drop of wine until the bottle is empty.
Cellar Selection -
Wine Spectator
Elegant, expressive, linear and firmly built, this red reveals strawberry, cherry, rose hip, eucalyptus, juniper, iron and salty flavors. Lithe and nimble, with a line of resonant tannins on the finish.
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Vinous
The 2018 Barolo Riserva Ravera Vigna Elena is a lifted, ethereal wine. Dried cherry, tobacco, incense, dried flowers, spice and leather open first, supported by beams of Ravera acid and tannin. In 2018 the Vigna Elena is not quite as sensual as it can be, but that is 2018 after all.
The Cogno family has been making wine for four generations in Piedmont. In 1990, Elvio Cogno left a long and fruitful partnership with the venerable Barolo producer Marcarini at La Morra and bought a splendid, historic 18th-century farmhouse on the top of Bricco Ravera, a hill near Novello in the Langhe area. (Novello is one of the 11 communes in which Barolo is produced.) The farm was surrounded by 11 hectares (27.18 acres) of steeply sloped vineyards. Elvio restored the manor, converted the old granaries to wine cellars and founded his eponymous winery. For the next 20 years he devoted himself to the winemaking traditions handed down to him by his father and grandfather.
Elvio, in turn, has now passed the torch to his daughter, Nadia, and her husband, Valter Fissore, who has worked beside Elvio for 25 years. Following in the footsteps of Elvio the maestro, Elvio Cogno winery continues to produce elegant wines without altering the traditions, styles and flavors of the Langhe, with its breathtaking quilted landscape and unique grape varieties.
The Elvio Cogno winery sits at the top of Bricco Ravera, a hill near Novello in the Langhe area of Piedmont, one of the 11 communes in which Barolo is produced. Ravera is the finest cru of Novello, encircling the top of the hill and the winery, reaching a 380-meter (1,246-foot) elevation, with breathtaking views in all directions.
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.