Winemaker Notes
The wine offers aromas of dark cherries, red plums, mint, and balsam, with a structured palate featuring fine-grained yet present tannins, delivering a mouth-filling and long-lasting finish, and pairs well with grilled steak, osso bucco, and truffled dishes.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Picture yourself savoring a glass of this exquisite wine, as a harmonious blend of macerated cherries and savory roasted mushrooms dance on your palate. The umami-rich flavors intertwine with dried flowers and shaved rosewood, creating a sophisticated and alluring bouquet. This wine is a true embodiment of elegance, with a presence that effortlessly captivates your senses. Drink Now - 2040.
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James Suckling
Beautiful nose here, with spiced cherries, raspberry bush, fine cedar, cloves and dried rose hips on offer. Minerals, too. So refined and delicious with polished tannins. Medium body. Very well made and already very attractive, but better after 2026.
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Jeb Dunnuck
From vines planted in sandier soils in Monforte D'Alba at an elevation of 400 meters, the 2020 Barolo Gramolere is a bright ruby color and offers deeper aromatics in its generous notes of candied raspberries, ripe, sweet fresh herbs, candied flowers, and sappy, mossy earth. On the palate, it’s tight and tension-packed, with a bright, citrus-driven, pithy texture, hints of mint and balsamic, and a clean, tea leaf-noted finish. Drink 2026-2040.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
With fruit from Monforte d'Alba, the Fratelli Alessandria 2020 Barolo Gramolere is slight and lean in terms of mouthfeel and has aromas of blackcurrant, crushed stone and grilled herb. This vintage is certainly shorter than previous years, although there is lots of nice freshness. The Gramolere is poised for a short to medium-term drinking window.
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Wine Spectator
There is heft to this red, its solid construction supporting flavors of macerated cherry, raspberry, eucalyptus and iron. The tannins relax their grip enough on the finish for the fruit to resurface. Best from 2028 through 2040.
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.