Winemaker Notes
Deep ruby red with garnet hues. Intense and pleasant wide bouquet with scent of currant, liquorice, tobacco, spices, coffee and leather. Multifaceted, harmonic and smooth with hint of blackberry, full- bodied with chewy tannins and pleasant finish.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has an attractive array of raspberry and red-cherry aromas, as well as swathe of fresh roses and light spices. The palate is juicy and pure with a very neat delivery of fine tannins, carrying bright red fruit in fresh, approachable mode.
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Tasting Panel
Smooth, toasty, and dense with racy acidity and elegant fruit; long and stylish with finesse and depth. 100% Nebbiolo.
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Jeb Dunnuck
From a hot vintage, the 2015 Barolo Monclivio nevertheless has notable elegance as well as terrific balance. Brought up in larger oak casks for 22 months, this medium ruby-hued Barolo offers lots of spiced red fruits as well as notes of licorice, dried earth, and a touch of savory herbs. Medium-bodied, nicely balanced, and textured, it's incredibly well done and a satisfying, balanced 2015 to enjoy over the coming 15 years or so.
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Wine Spectator
A plump, fruity Barolo, displaying cherry, plum, underbrush, tobacco and tar flavors. Firms up on the finish. Shows fine length, but lacks complexity in the end. Best from 2022 through 2036.
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.