Winemaker Notes
The Barolo del Comune di Verduno highlights the elegance and suave fruit of the Alessandria family’s home village, Verduno. We can’t think of a better tribute to this northern Barolo town, renowned for centuries for its refined Nebbiolo wines, not to mention its talented winemaking families.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Rose, woodland berry, pine forest and culinary spice are just some of the aromas you'll find on this fragrant, fantastic red. Smooth, full-bodied and polished, the savory palate delivers ripe red cherry, crushed raspberry, star anise and white pepper alongside velvety tannins. Fresh acidity keeps bright. Drink 2026–2033.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Fratelli Alessandria 2018 Barolo del Comune di Verduno shows extreme clarity and focus with pinpoint aromas of cassis, sour cherry, crushed stone and perfumed violets. This is a standout wine that shines bright in a vintage that is not always even when you consider its peers. The wine invigorates the palate with acidity, minerality and fine tannins. This is a terrific, albeit slightly more approachable Barolo.
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Wine & Spirits
In its second vintage, Vittore Alessandria’s comunale wine captures the best aspects of the 2018 vintage and the high-toned, vivacious personality of Verduno. It opens with scents of fresh rose petals, white pepper and menthol, setting a tone for the wine’s lively red cherry and berry flavors. Capable of aging, the wine is also appealing now for its precision and verve.
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.