Winemaker Notes
Enrico Serafino Barolo Monclivio is a deep ruby red with garnet hues. An intense and pleasant wide bouquet with scent of currant, licorice, 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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Wine Enthusiast
This Barolo opens with aromas of raspberry liquor, alpine herbs, cedar, leather and dried rose. Subtle at first, the wine then sneaks up on you with dried Amarena cherry, sandalwood, camphor and a chalky minerality finishing with fine-grained tannins.
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James Suckling
Ripe, succulent strawberry and raspberry fruit on the nose, thinning out somewhat when it meets the fine, firm tannin on the medium palate.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Enrico Serafino 2018 Barolo Monclivio is a blend of fruit from Serralunga d'Alba, Monforte d'Alba and La Morra. You get the power of the first two villages with the silky texture of the third. This wine is relatively approachable with direct fruit, blackberry, dried cherry and exotic spice.
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.