Winemaker Notes
With the Francesco Rinaldi Barolo Cannubi, the taste is dry, moderately tannic, full-bodied and robust.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
Rinaldi’s 2020 Barolo Cannubi marries power and finesse to a degree that is quite rare. There’s plenty of baby fat today, so I would be thinking of cellaring this for a bit. Macerated red cherry, kirsch, sweet spice, tobacco, leather, blood orange and rose petal form a super-classic profile. This is a distinctive Cannubi that is endowed with both substance and textural depth to burn.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This wine shows an especially minty character. The Francesco Rinaldi & Figli 2020 Barolo Cannubi has a bright profile of dark and purple fruits with a sweet finish. But those minty and spicy aromas make the difference. The alcohol content is just a hair below the other wines in this portfolio at 14.5%.
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Wine Enthusiast
Like a freshly baked raspberry pie cooling on a windowsill, this Barolo immediately grabs your attention with its intense and fruit-forward nose. The scent is plush and inviting, On the palate, the wine evokes the essence of a gourmet cranberry sauce, with its vibrant and slightly tart character beautifully complemented by sweet spices and a mesmerizing touch of incense highlighted by striking floral notes. All of this is wrapped around classic Nebbiolo structure that is both firm and elegant. Drink now through 2040.
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James Suckling
This is aromatic, with fresh cherries, red plums, dried flowers, grapefruit peel and hints of spiced blood oranges. Medium-bodied, refined and nicely formed on the palate, with a broad tannin structure and impressive length. Tense and persistent. Better from 2028.
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.