Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Claudio Fenocchio's mastery is evident in how he elicits the quintessence of Bussia in this wine. It unfolds with measured elegance, unhurried in its expression. The bouquet is rich with warm Marasca cherries, blood orange zest, fading rose, wild sage, and forest floor. Effortlessly, it glides across the palate, the 2020's tannins are soft, rounded, and plush, embracing the mixed berry preserves sprinkled with baking spices while the lively acidity elevates the experience, ensuring a fresh palate. This stands out as one of the premier wines of this vintage. Drink Now through 2045.
Editors' Choice -
Vinous
The 2020 Barolo Bussia is the most expressive of these Barolos from Claudio Fenocchio. Ample and layered in feel, the 2020 offers up a compelling mix of dark fruit, mocha, spice, leather, dried herbs and incense. There's real penetrating power to the aromatics and flavors here. Time in the glass brings out the wine's natural pedigree. The 2020 is beautifully done.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Ripe brick red in color, the 2020 Barolo Bussia is fruity and layered on opening with notes of mixed berries, baking spices, sage, and candied violets. Rounded and seamless, the palate offers a velvety texture, with ripe tannins and a long finish. Its ripeness of fruit shows on the finish, and it’s going to be best enjoyed over the next 8-10 years.
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Wine Spectator
A pretty red, exhibiting cherry, strawberry, cut hay, iron and menthol aromas and flavors. A dense matrix of tannins provides support as this shuts down somewhat on the lengthy finish. Best from 2028 through 2043.
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.