Winemaker Notes
Aromas of dark cherries, red plums, herbs, spices and warm leather. Structured yet silky, with fine-grained tannins.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This is the classic Barolo from Fratelli Alessandria, made with a blend of fruit from various sites in Verduno. (From the 2017 vintage forward, the new name "del Comune di Verduno" will reflect its origins.) The 2016 Barolo opens to tight elegance and a nervous quality that pits red fruit energy over lean fruit weight. The results are graceful, lithe, fragile and lasting. The wine's aromas unfolded slowly and seductively, revealing wild berry, cassis, bitter cherry, toasted almond and blue flower. This is a dreamy wine that promises more beauty as it continues its bottle evolution. An ample 20,000 bottles were produced. This is one of the very best values found anywhere in Barolo.
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Wine & Spirits
This is one of the best Barolo classicos we tasted from the 2016 vintage, combining elegance and energy in a way that makes it impossible to resist right out of the gate. The wine’s flavors of red cherry and blood orange are tart and crisp, tinged in notes of mint and white pepper that add to the wine’s freshness. This is the last vintage of Ales- sandria’s Barolo classico as, starting with 2017, they have dropped the small percentage of Gramolere fruit, presenting the wine as a Barolo del Comune di Verduno.
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James Suckling
tense. Flavorful finish. I like the richness and structure. Try after 2024.
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Wine Enthusiast
Rose, violet, forest-berry and wild herb aromas fill the glass on this fragrant red. Firmly structured yet loaded with finesse, the linear palate shows strawberry, red cherry, star anise and menthol set against assertive fine-grained tannins and bright acidity. It's still youthfully austere but balanced. Drink 2024–2036.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Barolo, brought up in a mix of larger Slovenian and French casks, reveals a medium ruby color as well as a rich, classic bouquet of spiced red fruits, cigar, smoked earth, and cedarwood. This rich, masculine Barolo has notable purity, fine tannins, and a great finish.
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.