Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Cannubi's light sandy soils give this wine its signature grace. Wild roses, crushed cherries, and subtle orange peel create an aromatic spell. Each sip reveals new layers, bright red fruits and subtle spices flow with remarkable clarity. The texture feels like silk wrapping around your tongue. This is Cannubi showing why it has enchanted wine lovers for generations. Drink Now - 2045.
Editors' Choice -
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 Barolo Cannubi pours a reflective ruby red hue and leads with a lovely floral and fruity perfume with an elegantly layered feel, revealing notes of fresh leather, raspberry liqueur, wild strawberries, fresh violets, and candied licorice. It moves seamlessly to the palate, with a juicy and approachable feel upfront before its more compact structure and energy reveal themselves through the mid-palate and finish. It has refreshing acidity, well-defined, ripe tannins, and a nice element of nervous energy through the finish, suggesting its ability to age and improve over the next 12-15 years. It’s a joyful and fantastic wine from Cannubi in this vintage.
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James Suckling
A restrained Barolo with red currants, red cherries, bright violets and a balsamic touch on the nose. More elegant than powerful, it’s medium- to full-bodied with enjoyable thick yet ripe tannins, crisp acidity and cherry stones in the finish. Drinkable now, but best from 2027.
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Wine Spectator
On the opulent side, this red exhibits plum, cherry, earth, iron, eucalyptus and spice flavors. Builds in intensity to the long, expansive finish while remaining balanced and expressive. There’s a fine grain and strong grip on the finish courtesy of dense tannins. Best from 2029 through 2045.
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.