Winemaker Notes
The color is deep garnet red and the bouquet is fine and pleasing, with intense scents of spiced rose and licorice. The flavor is dry, warm, full bodied and balanced with pronounced tannins and a persistent aftertaste. A wine particularly adapted for aging.
The Barolo Bussia, with its structure and body characteristics, pairs well with dishes of meat, game and aged cheeses, typical dishes of the local cuisine, as well as with many rich international dishes.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Subtle aromas of red cherries, dried flowers, freshly cut citrus peel and bergamot. Some crushed stone minerality, too. It’s medium-bodied with firm, linear tannins that are finely grained and evenly distributed across the palate. Pure and delicate fruit in the middle with floral and mineral accents. Well made. Firm and vertical.
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Wine Enthusiast
Dense and dark, almost brooding aromas of black cherry and spiced damson plums lift from the glass with scents of pine, tea and wild herbs. A wine of gravitas and power that is well structured and, today, is giving darkly dried fruits, star anise and leather, finishing with firm tannins and mouthwatering acidity.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Ripe and flush aromatically, the 2019 Barolo Bussia reveals generous notes of licorice candy, black raspberry, black truffle, and forest floor followed by a medium to full-bodied red offering forward, ripe tannins, with meaty cherry fruit, earthy mushrooms, and turned soil. It fills the palate but continues to drive forward and remain fresh. Allow another year or so and drink 2024-2036.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Giacomo Fenocchio 2019 Barolo Bussia has ripe cherry and dried raspberry on a first wave. With fruit from Monforte d'Alba, this wine shows nicely balanced results. I like the grip of the tannins and the focused, angular style of the wine that prizes crushed stone and rusty iron. This wine stands apart in this portfolio.
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.